Subject: Re: pkgsrc sickness
To: Jukka Marin <jmarin@pyy.jmp.fi>
From: Aaron J. Grier <agrier@poofygoof.com>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 08/21/2002 12:13:09
On Wed, Aug 21, 2002 at 10:24:59AM +0300, Jukka Marin wrote:
> I wanted to install sane-frontends.  BIG mistake!  This required
> updating the pth library, which in turn deleted "small" things like
> mrproject, kde, ghostscript, gqmpeg etc etc etc and etc.
> 
> Instead of installing a small piece of software, my machine will now
> be useless for one or two days (provided that no pkg build fails).
> 
> I still like the pkgsrc system, the this particular misfeature I hate.

it drives me crazy too, especially on my 40MHz decstation, but I believe
it is much preferable to not having any dependency checking at all.

I wonder if pkg_info could be modified to walk the package dependency
tree to give a rough idea of what packages would need to be updated if
the given one were updated.  it would be a recursive version of pkg_info
-R.  this wouldn't help if the updated package in pkgsrc had new
dependencies, but it would be a start...

-- 
  Aaron J. Grier | "Not your ordinary poofy goof." | agrier@poofygoof.com
    "i'm convinced that the cray cabinet has an outlet for plugging in
    welding attachments."  --  Skeezics Boondoggle, on the cray CS6400