[ATrpms-users] Packaging standars (Was: lzo on RHEL3)

[Thomas Moschny]

On Tue, Jun 19, 2007, Axel Thimm wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 04:44:49PM +0200, Thomas Moschny wrote:
> > Axel Thimm wrote:
> > > On Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 11:19:08AM +0200, Thomas Moschny wrote:
> > > > One of the design issues is that these lib* packages will stay there
> > > > and linger around in my system even when they are not needed anymore,
> > > > until I remove them manually or with the help of yum's
> > > > package-cleanup or whatever.
> > > >
> > > > The reason is that the existing infrastructure (librpm and it's
> > > > frontends smart/yum/apt) doesn't differentiate between packages that
> > > > were installed because user explicitly wished so, and those packages
> > > > that were installed as a dependency. Doing so would require the
> > > > frontends to maintain their own persistent knowledge about installed
> > > > packages, as the rpm database doesn't contain that information.
> > >
> > > In fact it does, but I haven't delivered a robust implemenation yet.
> >
> > No, it doesn't. Of course the rpm database contains dependency
> > information, but it doesn't record the reason why a package was
> > installed. I might want to keep a package installed, even when it is not
> > required (in the rpm sense) anymore. (Normally I won't, as I said, but
> > there are exceptions. The library might e.g. provide an optional and
> > audio codec.)
> >
> > > A poor man's implementation is (written down untested)
> > >
> > > for package in `rpm -q --whatprovides shared-library-package`; do rpm
> > > -e $package 2>/dev/null; done
> >
> > Where does 'shared-library-package' come from?
>
> That's the part where I say "it does", and you say "it doesn't". :)
> 'shared-library-package' was designed for exactly what you want it for.

Ok, now I see what you mean. But nevertheless, that's a static 'provides' 
property of your lib* packages. The rpm database really doesn't know whether 
that lib was installed because it was needed, or because I manually requested 
that package to be installed. In all cases, the lib* package will 
provide 'shared-library-package' and thus is a candidate to be removed by the 
proposed ...

> > > Something like this can be placed into cron and remove the packages
> > > automatically.

... cron job automatically, if not needed by any other installed rpm.

While in general this is not desired, a system may have applications installed 
outside the rpm system, e.g. in a user's home.

So, 

> > This is not really something I'd like to have on a production system.
>
> Care to detail?

having cron install and or remove packages without prior review is imho a bad 
thing. Suddenly some applications stops working, and I wonder why...

- Thomas


-- 
Thomas Moschny  <thomas.moschny at gmx.de>
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