Jack Schwartz wrote: > On 07/30/09 14:38, Shawn Walker wrote: >> Jack Schwartz wrote: >>> On 07/30/09 13:15, Shawn Walker wrote: >>>> That would assuage my fears greatly. There's really no protection >>>> in place to keep SVR4 packages from butchering files already on the >>>> system. >>> I just confirmed with an IPS team member that if an SVR4 package >>> contains only files which are orthogonal to those installed via IPS, >>> the SVR4-packaged files can co-exist with the other files without >>> issues. >>> >>> So, if the files themselves are good, they should work. >>> >>> Bad files can come in any kind of package, including IPS, so this >>> isn't a reason to exclude SVR4 packages. >>>> >>>> However, it still leaves users with the issue that they may be stuck >>>> with a driver that won't be installable regardless of whether or not >>>> the check succeeds because of the architectural changes that were >>>> made in the OpenSolaris 200x releases. >>> What architectural changes are you referring to? >> >> The non-existence of most of the contents of /usr/ucb, which may cause >> some driver setup scripts to fail. The lack of /usr/xpg6 by default? > OK. So there may be an issue here. That said, the "damage" looks to be > limited to a driver not installing due to a missing file. No files will > be butchered or overwritten. > > If someone tries to install a package of one OS version on a system with > a different OS version, this kind of thing can happen. > > There's also a very good chance that most packages will work. > > I think it's better to let the failing package script state the reason > for failure under the rare occasions of failure, than to always print a > message when there may be nothing to worry about. This way, the user > will be informed only when necessary, and hopefully will be told clearly > what caused the failure.
I personally would prefer to accurately set user expectations about the level of compatibility that is provided. With that said, I would take detailed failure output over nothing. -- Shawn Walker
