On Thursday 29 April 2010, JD wrote: > > Same reason as for the Debian packages: Upgrading with -U will > > work between 3.1.x releases but not from 3.1.x to 3.2.x. This > > makes it possible to have VBox 3.1.x and VBox 3.2.x in the same > > repository. > > Well, I do not know what you mean by having them in the same respository. > What benefit does that provide to the user? > Do you mean that both may be installed on the same system?
The VirtualBox package repository / software repository is the location where the VirtualBox packages may be retrieved from and installed on the local computer, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_repository Having separate package names for the development branches of VirtualBox (3.0.x, 3.1.x and 3.2.x) allows the user to decide which branch he want to install. If the user decides that VBox 3.1 fits his needs and he thinks that VBox 3.2.0 is not stable enough yet then he can decide to stay at VBox 3.1 but he will still receive the latest updates for this stable VBox 3.1 line when he does 'yum update' or 'zypper update'. Changes within a branch are usually much smaller and therefore the probability for a regression is lower. If the user decides that he wants to install the latest and greatest release then this decision requires active interaction: He has to switch manually from one package to a different package because VirtualBox-3.1 != VirtualBox-3.2 (the branch is part of the package name). And this isn't a problem, he can just uninstall VirtualBox 3.1 and will not loose _any_ setting. Sorry but I discussed this several times, is it really that difficult to understand? Yes, I would prefer if it would be possible to have both: The user can decide which branch he want to stay at and upgrading between different branches is possible without uninstalling the version of the previous branch. But this is _not_ possible, at least I'm not aware of such a solution. Because: As soon as there is a clean update path from VirtualBox-3.1 to VirtualBox-3.2 (this can be achieved by the rpm keyword "Obsoletes:" in the package description) then a simple 'yum update' or 'zypper update' would trigger the _automatic_ replacement of the old package by the new package -- and this automatism is exactly what we want to prevent! This article http://en.opensuse.org/Package_Dependencies describes the various RPM package dependencies. And to finally answer you question: No, it is _not_ possible to install different VirtualBox versions on the same machine. The reason is simple: The interface to the kernel modules of the two versions might have changed and there can be only one set of active VBox kernel modules at the same time. Kind regards, Frank -- Dr.-Ing. Frank Mehnert Sitz der Gesellschaft: Sun Microsystems GmbH, Sonnenallee 1, 85551 Kirchheim-Heimstetten Amtsgericht München: HRB 161028 Geschäftsführer: Jürgen Kunz
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