Subject: Re: sorted dependencies
To: None <tech-pkg@NetBSD.org>
From: Roland Illig <rillig@NetBSD.org>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 08/07/2005 02:30:38
César Catrián C. wrote:
> "Jeremy C. Reed" <reed@reedmedia.net> wrote:
>>Why do you need some packages installed before others?
> 
> Because I have a meta-package with all the packages I need in my system. It has
> 180 dependencies and it is growing, and is sorted by levels of priorities 
> (servers installed first, games last, etc.). When I am upgrading, I delete all 
> the outdated packages (and dependencies) and reinstall all using the 
> meta-package.

You could create some meta-packages like my-servers, my-tools, my-games 
and make my-tools depend on my-servers.

In general I think that dependencies should be treated as an unordered 
list. If you have dependencies (either hard ones or soft ones, like in 
your case) that should be expressed by using package dependencies.

On the other hand, I wouldn't feel offended if anyone changed back the 
dependencies to the first-come-first-serve order, I just prefer the 
alphabetical order.

Roland