On Aug 25, 2009, at 6:03 PM, johan...@sun.com wrote:
The system has to be servicable in addition to being manageable.
After reading the posts in this discussion, nobody in favor or
no-deps or force has been able to articulate why this would be
necessary if dependencies are kept correctly in package metadata.
it's this exact assumption that's being challenged, and i think the
response essentially boils down to "not our problem - the package
creators need to 'correctly' structure and define their
dependencies" -
(whatever this means) .. or "file a bug if a package dependency is
'broken'" - (for whatever we take the term broken to mean)
You're challenging the assumption that the system has to be
servicable?
no silly .. i mean the assumption that "dependencies are kept
'correctly' in package metadata" .. also assuming the notion that
"correct dependencies" exist
pkgrecv --nodeps and re-publishing in a local repository is an idea
and pretty simple to implement, but this doesn't necessarily help if
you want to quickly remove something buried under 3 layers of
dependencies and test your own dependencies.. agreed that this is
typically done as part of a quick troubleshooting exercise (ie: remove
this package, re-add this package) or developer exercise (eg: "let me
make sure the system is forced to used my libraries instead the ones
provided by this dependency") instead of a proper *modification of
installed packages invalidates your support agreement* type of
exercise .. but i've been in this boat a number of times, and i really
dislike having to work around the installation tools to get the system
to look like i'd want it to ..
don't get me wrong - i'm not saying that --force and --no-deps is the
only solution to the problem .. and yes i've met my fair share of
cowboy administrators that systematically hose their systems with this
(of course they also tend to figure out the correct order later, and
quickly rebuild if there's a problem .. so it can be less of a concern
than you might think) .. i'd just like to propose a --zforce option
that checks to make sure you're on a zfs root, automatically snapshots
the current config, applies the changes unconditionally while also
logging the state of the system to document what you've done .. i'd
also like to propose a package map tool that details the topography of
the package dependency landscape - i believe it'll make conversations
like this much easier to have, as well as easily display dependencies
or possible options for the administrator before they commit to
something they may not have wanted in the first place.
just a thought
Jonathan
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