repository breakage

[seth vidal]

On Sat, 2005-11-26 at 07:23 -0800, Alex Lancaster wrote:
> >>>>> "sv" == seth vidal  writes:
> 
> >> https://devel.linux.duke.edu/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=296
> >> 
> >> It seems that given that the presence of any third party repos that
> >> can block FC+FE security updates (and even FC updates can sometimes
> >> be blocked by FE packages that haven't been upgraded!), wouldn't a
> >> prudent approach be to allow at least the packages that aren't
> >> blocked be upgraded and hold back the other ones (as apt-get does)?
> 
> sv> We can't KNOW what the value of one package is over the other. We don't
> sv> have any severity information in the metadata. How can we rank
> sv> which package is a more important update?
> 
> Well, if we don't adapt the tools to cope with out-of-sync packages,
> then we need to shift the onus to the packagers and ensure that
> updates are shunted out that are compatible with (at least) the
> official downstream repos (e.g. FC updates should be compatible with
> FE updates).
> 
> I've lost count of the number of bugzilla's I've filed against galeon
> for rebuilding when a new version mozilla came out, because it caused
> yum to grind to halt.  It's that kind of breakage that makes people
> think (fairly or unfairly) that Extras is kind of second-class to
> Core, because it is very rare that a set of updates from Core ever
> cause yum to not upgrade.  It seems that the Core maintainers aren't
> necessarily following Extras to see what Extras packages would be
> impacted.
> 
> It seems the problem is more a matter of co-ordination: Core updates
> come out and Extras sometimes have to scramble to keep up, then Extras
> updates come out and Livna plays catch-up.  Perhaps there is better
> way of using repoquery and/or other tools by ensuring that at any
> given time the combination of at least FC+FE (or even better
> FC+FE+Livna) is consistent before updates hit the mirrors.
> 

yes, it's called repoclosure and we run it quite frequently. Michael
Schwendt recently just sent a 'your pkg is broken' email to all of the
packagers with a package in extras with an unresolved dep.

I would love to make michael's script a daily occurrence if he'd agree.

-sv