Re: SEUL: Re: Repost: Intended Package Management features

[William T Wilson <fluffy@benatar.dunadan.com>]

On Thu, 8 Jan 1998, poe wrote:

> What about existing software packages that aren't equiped with this
> facilities.

We'll have to repackage this software into a form that has this
information.  Although users will often want to install software that
isn't included in the distribution, we'll hopefully be able to test our
updates against most of these packages.

Alternatively, we might be able to maintain old libraries for some time
after an upgrade.  Or, perhaps, this would be a good idea...

Using the new "preferences/properties" tab that we were discussing, where
a graphical frontend configures software based on a script, we could
include a drop-down box with a list of all the different libc (et al.)
versions installed, and the user could choose from a list as to which one
they want to use...

Hopefully as glibc gets the bugs worked out of it, these sort of
incompatibilities should arise MUCH less often than in the past.  As for
removal of old packages required for new custom packages, we'll ... have
to just cross our fingers, I believe.  We'll be able to create
dependencies for 'virtual packages' of the most common commercial
software, but the user would have to let the package manager know they've
installed the program and follow the package manager's recommendations.

blah.

It's just not generally possible to know whether a package is in USE,
unless you keep records when the dependent packages are installed - which
won't happen if the user installs software external to the package
manager.