[csw-maintainers] Alternatives without automatic selection

[Dagobert Michelsen]

Hi Phil,

Am 30.11.2010 um 22:04 schrieb Philip Brown:
> On 11/30/10, Geoff Davis <gadavis at opencsw.org> wrote:
>> ...
>> How does the alternatives mechanism handle package upgrades of an existing
>> package in the Linux world? If I recall, the RPM and Debian package managers
>> have the concept of "upgrade" rather than "Uninstall" followed by "Install".
> 
> I think that is a side issue; if we just focus on pure "install", the
> central issue here becomes clearer. Please see below
> 
>> I would assume therefore that the initial package installation order
>> determines in perpetuity what package is preferred. This would certainly be
>> the behavior that I would expect from the OpenCSW tools.
> 
> well, it's exactly the opposite, from what you will get from a linux install.
> Try the following, with names adjusted as appropriate, in your linux
> distribution of choice that supports "alternatives":

Your example is for alternatives with different priorities. My example
(and all the discussion) is about same priorities.

> For what it's worth.. seeing as how it's "OUR" tool, so we can
> customize how we like :), I could potentially see adding in some kind
> of configuration option in our tool, that behaves in a "first come
> first served" manner. However, given the common expectation out there
> of hundreds of thousands of linux systems working in the exact
> opposite way.

They do not. Having an update-hook in pkg* would be the best solution
for persistence, but feel free to work around that in the script.


Best regards

  -- Dago