Circular dependencies

[Michael Thomas]

Michael Schwendt wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Nov 2006 16:25:16 +0100, Ralf Ertzinger wrote:
> 
>>> It is OK as rpm/yum can sort this out at install / update / removal
>>> time provided that both packages are in the transaction list.  The fun
>>> part comes in BUILDING them.
>> Thankfully it's just a runtime dependency.
> 
> The key question this raises is _why_ can't both packages be combined
> into one?

If one of the packages contains large, static data files that don't 
change often (such as game data), while the second package contains the 
application code that depends on the existence of the first (such as a 
game engine).  You don't want to push updates of a 50MB+ data file that 
doesn't change for every minor bugfix in the engine.

Most of the large games in Fedora, however, don't do this with a 
circular dependency, but rather by having the game data require the game 
engine (or sometimes vice versa).

--Wart