Subject: binary dependancy ordering
To: None <tech-pkg@netbsd.org>
From: <>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 06/15/1999 19:22:10
Hokay... i think i brought this up before, but it may have gotten lost in =
the heat of something else...
The dependancy lists in binary packages are in the wrong order. It's =
plain alphabetical, which causes some packages to fail to install in one =
pass on an 'empty' system. (E.g. try to pkg_add kde-1.1.1 with none of =
its dependancies installed... it will take two tries, at least. it will =
try kdebase ahead of kdelibs, png, qt, tiff, and xpm.)
There are two solutions - make pkg_add truly recurse to dependancies =
(which is probably icky), or list the dependancies in a better order =
(probably easier). I wrote a script to compute a suitable ordering once =
the packages are already installed, to see how hard it is to do (not very) =
- <URL:http://www.glinx.com/~hclsmith/netbsd/pkgdep/> . Last night I =
replaced the +CONTENTS of kde-1.1.1 with the order I had computed from =
kde-1.1, and everything went in no sweat in a single pass.
Or, perhaps... hmmm, there is a third way. It's a tweak to pkg_add (maybe =
it's been done? i may be using an old pkg_add); if a dependancy fails to =
install because its dependancies aren't met, move it to the end of the =
queue instead of skipping it. (knowing when to stop is a bit tricky, =
then... remember the first failure since the last success, and if you =
return to it, nothing more will install.)
I don't know enough about the package tools to help with implementing =
this, unfortunately...
--
<URL:http://www.glinx.com/~hclsmith/>