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Date:      Thu, 8 Apr 1999 19:57:20 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Chuck Robey <chuckr@mat.net>
To:        John Fieber <jfieber@indiana.edu>
Cc:        Peter Jeremy <peter.jeremy@auss2.alcatel.com.au>, bartol@salk.edu, current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: /sys/boot, egcs vs. gcc, -Os
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.10.9904081952590.378-100000@picnic.mat.net>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9904081843090.30954-100000@fallout.campusview.indiana.edu>

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On Thu, 8 Apr 1999, John Fieber wrote:

> On Fri, 9 Apr 1999, Peter Jeremy wrote:
> 
> > There's no mechanism for updating a package - and it's not clear (to
> > me anyway) how this can be done safely in a general way.  Where the
> > update is only minor (and won't affect the dependent packages), you
> > can use something like:
> 
> For an update to work, files that must be preserved (shared
> libraries mainly) over an update must be tagged.  If libfoo-1.0
> is installed and I upgrade to libfoo-2.3, the libfoo-1.0 package
> should be removed except /usr/local/share/libfoo.so.1.0.  Then
> libfoo-2.3 gets installed and *inherits*
> /usr/local/share/libfoo.so.1.0 in its +CONTENTS so that if you
> want to do a wholesale removal of the libfoo package in the
> future, you can do it.
> 
> A completely different approach to this dependency nightmare is
> to link statically.  I know there are drawbacks to this and the
> costs are too great in numerous situations.  But if you *can*
> practically do this, you can demote a runtime dependency to a
> build time dependency which is a Good Thing for your sanity.

Don't forget, with all the gnome and gtk ports (and the kde things)
there are various files with "config" in their names, that a bunch of
other ports depend on ... just to add confusion, and the rules for these
dependencies aren't as cut and dried as the libs, because the libs
follow usually one set of rules (laid down by the runtime linker) but
the config files, every port seems to use it's own set of rules.  And
there is no "static linking" for config files, to save you.

A lot of these config files only take effect while building other libs
or applications, which means they sometimes won't affect regular runtime
problems, just beating the heck out of the upgrade nightmare.

> 
> -john
> 
> 
> 
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Chuck Robey                 | Interests include any kind of voice or data 
chuckr@picnic.mat.net       | communications topic, C programming, and Unix.
213 Lakeside Drive Apt T-1  |
Greenbelt, MD 20770         | I run picnic (FreeBSD-current)
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