:~>Yup, pretty pictures will save the world...
:~>
:~>What I'm missing is why the packaging system isn't working as it's
:~>supposed to. You upgrade a package and it removes the old package and
:~>installs the new. At least that's the way it works for me... Why not
:~>during installation???
Because "install" means "wipe my HD and install the new system", while
"upgrade" means "please give my old system a face lift, but do not ruin
it". In my opinion "Upgrade" should be made much better - in the future
there will be much more need for upgrades than for the clean installs,
especially if they start selling pre-installed linux PC-s everywhere.
See below for my sugestions:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I did "upgrade" instalation from several RH x.y machines, and the problem
is following: If you try installing a package and you bump into some
allready installed package, "rpm -i" or "rpm -U" do not install it.
Therefore you end-up with unusable (or semi-usable) system.
I think this is a bug in install procedure. Right way to do an "upgrade"
from any existing system to Mandrake X.Y would be:
1) check if there is anything installed allready. If not say
"I cannot find installed system, should i continue with full install?"
2) check if the installed system is rpm-based. If not, ask
"Your previous system is not rpm-based. If I continue with instalation
some of the files belonging to your instalation will be overwritten, other
will not. Should i continue with full install and erase all the currently
instaslled packages (except maybe /opt and /usr/local)"
3) If the old system is RPM-based, then check if you can install all the
packages with: "Upgrade" or not. If yes, all is OK - if not, ask:
"Following packages from your current system collide with packages from
Mandrake X.Y. To continue with upgrade, either these packages have to be
deinstalled first, or some of the "new" packages have to be discarded."
A table of packages with "old" packages on left side and "new"
packages which cannot be installed on the right side, with a possibility
to choose either the packages on the left or on the right side would be
good. Some of the packages should be denoted as "essencial" - these must
be installed in order to get the working Mandrake system, so "discarding"
such packages should be made as complicated as possible.
followed by:
"Please choose which packages you want to have installed, then continue
with the upgrade.
In this way, one would be sure to get a fully functional system in the
end, even if he tries to upgrade from Suse 5.2 to Mandrake 7.5.
As it is, "Upgrade" does more-or-less an "rpm -U " and one has to hope
everything goes well - which it does not, as I have painfully found out.
The worse of all is that some of the bugs which appear after an "Upgrade"
from RH X.Y to Mandrake 6.1 are very subtle, and not easy to find and
eliminate later.
cheers
Denis
-----------------------------------------------------
Mag. Denis Havlik <http://www.ap.univie.ac.at/users/havlik>
University of Vienna ||| e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Austria (@ @) tel: (++431) 4277/51179
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