Goodbye, Fedora

[Axel Thimm]

On Wed, Feb 21, 2007 at 01:25:01PM -0500, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> Rahul Sundaram <sundaram at fedoraproject.org>:
> > We only have your analysis of the problem. Not a description of the 
> > actual problem. That would be more helpful. Perhaps a bug report.
> 
> You have half of it.  rpm should be statically linked to avoid this sort
> of cul-de-sac.  It's not like multople instances of it running are
> going to be a frequent occurrence.

No, that's not really an issue, see below for the kernel analogon.

> I can tell you the library in question was libcom_err, and I think I
> deleted it when removing e2fsprogs-libs to get around a file
> conflict.

Whatever the conflict may have been, in order to rip out a library
needed by other bits you need to use force (--nodeps) or an equivalent
step in a higher level tool. E.g. this does not happen accidentally,
you had to remove the safety pin.

It's like removing ext3.ko from the kernel and rebooting. If you can
access your data anymore would you conclude that a monolithic kernel
would had been better? In fact the package system employed in Fedora
(rpm) did have the dependencies in place and warned you when you tried
to remove the package w/o using --nodeps. There is no such safety
mechanism for the kernel, so would you recommend even stringer to have
monolithic kernels?

And even if rpm was build statically, you (or another user) may have
accidentially used rpm -e --nodeps rpm or even simpler rm -f
/bin/rpm and be in the same situation.
-- 
Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/attachments/20070221/aac124e2/attachment.sig>