[Fedora-packaging] Re: Proposal to limit file deps

[Fernando Nasser]

I have two questions:

1) If this is a problem that only affects yum and all the other 
depsolvers do it efficiently, would it be better to fix yum instead or 
working around it by spec file changes?

2) If we still use file deps for things in /bin /sbin /usr/bin 
/usr/sbin, which happens for all GCJ compiled packages, wouldn't it 
force the reading of the second file anyways?

regards,
Fernando

Panu Matilainen wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Dec 2006, Axel Thimm wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, Dec 21, 2006 at 12:59:37PM +0200, Panu Matilainen wrote:
>>> On Wed, 20 Dec 2006, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
>>>> '''SHOULD''': If the package has file dependencies outside
>>>> of /etc, /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, or /usr/sbin consider requiring the
>>>> package which provides the file instead of the file itself.
>>>>
>>>> Using file dependencies outside of /etc, /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin,
>>>> or /usr/sbin requires yum (and other depsolvers using the repomd 
>>>> format)
>>>> to download and parse a large xml file looking for the dependency.
>>>> Helping the depsolvers avoid this processing by depending on the 
>>>> package
>>>> instead of the file saves our end users a lot of time.
>>>
>>> Just FWIW, this doesn't actually help smart and apt at all,
>>
>> Why? If unneccessary file dependencies are removed the files sizes get
>> smaller. Of course, yum has the larger benefits, but apt/smart/etc
>> would benefit from say cutting off half of the file dependencies, too.
> 
> Looking up a file dependency is just as cheap as looking up a package 
> dependency in apt and smart (AFAIK, haven't studien smart in too much 
> detail), once the initial crunching through the available files is done.
> 
> Throwing out *unnecessary* dependencies (file or package) is obviously 
> good, even if it's hardly noticeable in the filesizes in reality. This 
> simply doesn't change the fact that apt and smart need to download the 
> filelists.xml along with primary.xml at all times to guarantee working 
> with any old repomd repository.
> 
>     - Panu -
> 
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