further package removals/potential package removals
Stuart Children
stuart at terminus.co.uk
Mon Jan 24 16:43:57 UTC 2005
Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> Only if the installer actually supports installing from extras as
> well, otherwise an upgrade may be impossible, or leave the system in a
> broken state.
This is one of my biggest concern with Extras.
I have no problem with many of the packages I regularly use being moved
to Extras, so long as I can use tools given to me to continue managing a
mix of packages from both Core and Extras - and that includes upgrades.
I seriously do not consider reinstalling (then adding my Extras
packages) a viable option every 6-8 months (Fedora's release cycle).
I do not have a problem with an upgrade saying: "You have non-Core
packages installed. Please specify repository locations [1] or continue
at risk of broken packages."
[1] Either "add" a CD ala debian, or point at a local directory, smb or
nfs mount point, ftp server, etc of an Extras repository for the version
of Fedora you are upgrading to (and any other repositories come to that).
> At which point I really fail to see the point of extras: either it's
> part of the distro, or it isn't. Labeling it as extras just because
> it's in a separate CD is useful, because then people can choose which
> CDs to download and burn upfront, but it serves no other purpose.
I see Core as "packages managed mainly by RedHat employees and essential
to a base [desktop|server] system" (latter is horribly subjective I
know), and Extras as "packages mainly packaged by non-RedHat employees",
with the extra requirement that no package in Core should depend on a
package in Extras. Both are parts of the overall distribution, but Core
simply has stricter QC and inclusion requirements.
HTH
--
Stuart Children
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