yum, and 2 packages that provide the same thing

[Stephen Warren]

James Antill wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-04-17 at 18:00 -0600, Stephen Warren wrote:
>> I have a question re: how yum determines which package to install when
>> they both provide the same thing.
>>
>> Specifically, I have:
>>
>> unison213
>>   obsoletes:
>>     unison < 2.27.57-3
>>   provides:
>>     unison = 2.13.16-9.fc8.3
>>     unison213 = 2.13.16-9.fc8.3
> 
>  This obsoletes itself, which recent versions of yum should handle
> better ... but is still "interesting" to say the least.
>...
>  But the most obvious fix is to remove the self obsoletes on the first
> package.

Well, the obsoletes tag is required so that unison213 and unison227
obsolete the old unison package, and hence replace it on yum update.

The provides of unison (which isn't actually there for the package
actually in F7/8/devel for unison213, but is for unison227 - I just
added it to unison213 for testing, and it made no difference either way)
was there in the hope that "yum install unison" would "just work" (pick
the "later" version of the 2 packages in a given distro) - removing the
requirement for users to "yum install unisonNNN" where they just want
the latest version.

I guess if it's not going to work, I can just remove the provides.