On 04/29/2010 12:29 AM, Frank Mehnert wrote: > 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 I see. Thank you very much for this lucid explanation. Certainly makes sense, especially to those who are running production systems, rather than just trying things out.
Regards, JD ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ VBox-users-community mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/vbox-users-community
