Tricks for laying down good foundations ;-)

[David Timms]

Bruno Wolff III wrote:
> While trying to get a games spin going again I noticed a number of errors
> installing packages where they are installed before coreutils even though
> they have pre scripts that need things like 'touch', 'mv' and the like.
> It turns out this happens because they don't include:
> Requires(pre): coreutils
> in their spec file.

I would suggest that spin and anaconda process be a multi-part rpm 
install process:
- install core + enough to build kernel boot image
- install kernel, rpm, yum
- install the rest of non gui packages
- install any gui packages.

Currently, there appears to be no defined order for install process; in 
fact of a default-ish install of 1000 packages, kernel might be around 
850 to 900 into the process, openoffice around 500.

This could improve the end result for cases where things go wrong, and 
the install does not complete. This reduces the chances of having an 
unbootable system, because kernel wan't yet installed; or un package 
managable system (no rpm + yum).

I could also imagine performance improvements when highly used libraries 
(that often don't change during a release), get placed on the fastest 
part of the disk.

Not sure about the highly changeable kernel though ?

When rpm is -Updating, will the existing positions that files are on 
within the disk be re-used ?

DaveT.