Your message dated Mon, 3 Feb 2020 07:32:16 +0100 with message-id <[email protected]> and subject line Re: Bug#950524: apt: Please let users specify how deeply to update the dependency tree has caused the Debian Bug report #950524, regarding apt: Please let users specify how deeply to update the dependency tree to be marked as done.
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--- Begin Message ---Package: apt Version: 1.8.4 Severity: wishlist Dear Maintainer, Thank you very much for helping keep Debian's admin tools so cool! It seems to me that managing software complexity is becoming more important as Debian acquires more packages. The main reason I'm writing is to humbly suggest a new feature to apt, apt-get and/or aptitude. It would let users specify how deeply into a packages dependency tree to upgrade dependencies to their current versions. My understanding is the current policy is to upgrade the named package to its current version, and only its dependencies if their installed versions do not happen to satisfy the named package's dependency. For example "$ aptitude upgrade sagemath failed to upgrade its dependency on the cython3 package to the latest version available in unstable, 0.29.14-0.1+b1. sagemath's dependency says ">= 0.29.1" is good enough, and 0.29.2-2 was installed. I humbly suggest added a cool new option: "-dl <levels>" where <levels> is a number specifying how deeply into the named package's dependency tree to upgrade dependencies to the currently available version. I suppose it may also accept a key word like "max" or "all" to freshen the whole dependency tree. I can imagine it helping find bugs and/or our understanding of software complexity. Either way, Debian may get better. So, Kingsley
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--- Begin Message ---On Sun, Feb 02, 2020 at 04:59:12PM -0800, Kingsley G. Morse Jr. wrote: > Package: apt > Version: 1.8.4 > Severity: wishlist > > Dear Maintainer, > > Thank you very much for helping keep Debian's > admin tools so cool! > > It seems to me that managing software complexity > is becoming more important as Debian acquires more > packages. > > The main reason I'm writing is to humbly suggest a > new feature to apt, apt-get and/or aptitude. > > It would let users specify how deeply into a > packages dependency tree to upgrade dependencies > to their current versions. > > My understanding is the current policy is to > upgrade the named package to its current version, > and only its dependencies if their installed > versions do not happen to satisfy the named > package's dependency. > > For example > > "$ aptitude upgrade sagemath > > failed to upgrade its dependency on the cython3 > package to the latest version available in > unstable, 0.29.14-0.1+b1. That's aptitude, not apt. > > sagemath's dependency says ">= 0.29.1" is good > enough, and 0.29.2-2 was installed. > > I humbly suggest added a cool new option: "-dl <levels>" > where <levels> is a number specifying how deeply > into the named package's dependency tree to > upgrade dependencies to the currently available > version. > > I suppose it may also accept a key word like "max" > or "all" to freshen the whole dependency tree. Not going to happen. While it seems plausible to do something like that in a limited way with the current solver because it is basically completely bananas, this does not work for a sensible solver. It's also generally the wrong approach, as you most likely end up with stuff like libc6 at depth levels of 1, so you'll be upgrading the C library every time you want to do a partial upgrade. A simple way to avoid having to even talk about this stuff is to not do partial upgrades. Just upgrade everything. -- debian developer - deb.li/jak | jak-linux.org - free software dev ubuntu core developer i speak de, en
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