[Fedora-packaging] Conflicts in Core and Extras packages

[Michael Schwendt]

On Tue, 14 Nov 2006 14:29:01 -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:

> Nicolas Mailhot said: 
> > Conflicts :
> > - save your ass before you hose your system with an unsupported
> > combination
> > - don't force you to have half the distro as installed requires just to
> > be sure there's no version conflict
> > - tell you A won't work with B (version). So the obvious way out is : a.
> > install a compatible b version b. remove B if you don't really need it
> 
> Exactly. The kernel doesn't *require* that you have oprofile installed,
> but it may not work with a sufficiently old oprofile.

That's why a sufficiently new oprofile is provided together with the
kernel in the same distribution.

Only if you leave this package universe and want to use a kernel or
oprofile from elsewhere, introducing such versioned conflicts may be
justified. And hopefully they are well-maintained.

But still, it only relocates a packaging problem from build-time to
install-time. It would be much better, if compatibility were checked at
build-time --> refuse to build when something in the distribution is
insufficient. And if it's a fully optional package and smart, it
would examine the system for compatibility at run-time.


Anyway, just that it's not forgotten. There are non-versioned conflicts in
Extras, and those are of primary interest.