RPM Soft dependencies (Was: Re: Agenda for the 2009-05-26 Packaging Committee meeting)

Muayyad AlSadi alsadi at gmail.com
Mon Jun 1 14:52:27 UTC 2009


the only usage for soft dependency in my opinion is to offer the user
with choices in front ends like yumex and PK
in other words they should be considered as does not depend when
removing packages or doing a cleanup

> yum-remove-with-leaves will happily remove those even if you actually want them!

I filed a bug report about it, and devels added an option to make it
works with libraries only
I asked them to make it default, they refused
but that's not a bug deal
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=481465

I liked the concept of flagging the packages as required by humans and
installed for dependencies
maintaining such database of why each package was added to the system
after install will allow yum to make better cleanup decisions

my suggestion
0. this database should be maintained by yum after installation
1. the database contains all the packages dragged for dependency
2. all libraries are dragged for dependency packages
3. installation does not touch that database (except libraries)
4. I'm very boring and talk is cheap :-)




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