Egbert Bouwman wrote:
>
> On Wed, Dec 22, 1999 at 10:43:05PM +0100, steve doerr wrote:
> > Is there a way to change dpkg package remove tags? I ran dselect after
> > manually dpkg'ing postgresql and jdk and I somehow got almost everything
> >
Remember that the dependencies will kick in (though jdk & postgresql are
not dependent on _THAT_ many packages)..
> You are one of many, myself included, who asked similar questions
> about resetting dselect or dpkg after they created chaos.
> We only want to start all over again with the selection process.
> I have never read a helpful reply. Does nobody know ?
> Or did we ask the wrong question ?
This raises a number of issues..
When do you want to revert?
So long as you've not actually installed anythong, control-c bombs out
of dselect, without changing the package list.
you can use dpkg --get-selections and dpkg --set-selections to
specifically set the package list.
If you want the package-management system itself to keep a track of
changes, this is a huge task: how far back do you keep your records? do
you track user-requested packages seperately from dependency
installations? do you want to be able to revert packages, or just change
the installed/not-installed nature? what about distribution upgrades
(slink -> potato[e]), how big a requirement is the ability to be able to
revert (1, 2, .. steps)?
I happen to agree, it would be great to be able to easily revert to a
situation (say) two updates ago.
I see two main difficulties:
1) modifying dpkg to keep data files on the packages installed and
removed.
This shouldn't be too tricky: you need files:
user_selected_install; dependency_install; user_seleced_remove. Each
line on the file is date:package:package:package[:package]+
2) Keeping the previously installed packages (the one that is to be
replaced during a package upgrade).
The Debian philosophy seems to be to keep the .debs off the
workstations (based on the question "do you want to delete the
downloaded .deb files" after an upgrade) - therefor I would assume that
debian.org (and the mirrors) would have to retain all .deb files,
including those with bugs in them, so that customers can revert
This, I think, is what will be killing the "revert" concept: it
requires just TOO MUCH disk space (a full Debian mirror needs something
like 20GB just now, so the archiving would need a huge file-system)
:(
Hope this helps..
--
--==**==--
Ian Stuart - University computing services.
---------------------------------
Opinions are funny things:
Mine are mine and mine alone
http://lucas.ucs.ed.ac.uk/
