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List:       gentoo-dev
Subject:    Re: [gentoo-dev] About trying to prevent downgrades of packages that cause system breakage
From:       Zac Medico <zmedico () gentoo ! org>
Date:       2012-06-30 20:20:19
Message-ID: 4FEF5F83.5020100 () gentoo ! org
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On 06/30/2012 11:33 AM, Andreas K. Huettel wrote:
> Am Samstag 30 Juni 2012, 13:22:39 schrieb Zac Medico:
>> On 06/30/2012 04:07 AM, Pacho Ramos wrote:
>>> I would like to discuss a bit more issues like:
>>> https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=423087
>>>
>>> Even if there are "a lot" of packages that can cause this breakage when
>>> downgraded, I think it should be prevented and package managers
>>> shouldn't try to downgrade this kind of packages as they will later
>>> cause a total breakage. People is not supposed to know that downgrading
>>> some package system will, for example, have an unusable gcc.
>>
>> It seems like a die in pkg_pretend would serve pretty well.
> 
> As a comparatively simple, user-oriented workaround, since this only happens 
> at downgrades and these should be pretty rare, I have the following 
> suggestion:
> 
> Make a portage feature that is **on by default**, which causes portage to 
> generate a binpkg of the version to be unmerged, in the case of a downgrade.
> 
> Rationale:
> * if you know what you are doing, you can switch this off easily
> * does not take much space since downgrades are rare
> * should help our users a lot, whenever someone accidentally or not-knowingly 
> downgrades something critical.
> 
> Thoughts?

I like that idea. I've filed this bug:

https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=424275
-- 
Thanks,
Zac


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