Dependency hell

[Andrew Farris]

On Fri, 2004-04-02 at 21:26 -0500, Richard Hally wrote:

> Please see the list of my attempts to update  my system  to  rawhide. 
> The thing that seems most incorrect is that rpm or yum do not report 
> correctly the packages that need to be excluded.  Since there always 
> seems to be some dependency problem (one gets fixed but another one 
> stops the update) it would seem that a reliable way to determine which 
> packages to exclude would be very helpful and save time that can be put 
> to better use. thanks for any help,
> Richard Hally
> 
>  
> 
> > [root at localhost root]# yum upgrade
<snip>
> > Package pwlib needs libdv.so.2, this is not available.
> > Package xemacs needs libRKC.so.1.2, this is not available.
> > Package xemacs needs libcanna.so.1.2, this is not available.
> > Package dvgrab needs libdv.so.2, this is not available.
> > Package db4-java needs db4 = 4.1.25-14, this is not available.
<snip>
> > [root at localhost root]# yum --exclude=pwlib --exclude=xemacs 
> > --exclude=dvgrab --exclude=db4-java   upgrade

You have, like so many others, misunderstood the statements: they are
not telling you what packages are not available, they are telling you
what files are no longer available (due to the new version being
installed--libraries are being removed/updated).

libdv.so.2 is being removed, the new version of libdv does NOT supply
it, likewise for the other files mentioned.  This is accurately telling
you what files are no longer present after the test upgrade (dependency
tests).

You should have instead excluded the library packages that were being
changed, not the packages you already have that require the old library
files.  What you did was to exclude packages which you already have
installed--essentially doing nothing.

You may need to remove db4-java since that package requires an old
library (or find the update to it which should be built properly against
the new library).
yum --exclude=libdv* --exclude=Canna-lib* --exclude=db4 update
-- 
Andrew J Farris
afarris at calpoly.edu  ::  andrew at andrewfarris.com
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo CA
http://www.andrewfarris.com/