Understanding Prioritization

[Eli Wapniarski]

On Thursday, 22 בDecember 2005 01:12, Gustavo Niemeyer wrote:
> > What kind of spread are we talking about? Nothing as yet has been
> > explained very weill? The numbers themselves are not positive but
>
> In my answer to your original email:
>
> """
> A package priority is currently considered in two distinct moments:
> [...]
> 2) When there are multiple alternatives for satisfying a dependency,
>    a package having a higher priority has more chances of being
>    selected to satisfy the dependency. That's not an isolated
>    decision though. For instance, if installing a package with a
>    higher priority would mean including dozens of other dependencies,
>    the priority *difference* between the higher priority package and
>    the other packages should be big enough to justify the change.
> """
>
> I'm trying to explain, I'm trying to colaborate, but you must
> help a bit as well. ;-)
>
> > negative numbers (as suggested by the FAQ). I have put the priorities
> > negative numbers leaving the top kde-redhat repos at default that is,
> > priority 0 (as suggested by the FAQ).
> >
> > So. again the kde-redhat as priority 0, Freshrpms as -1 (negative 1) and
> > fc4 repos at (-5). Could please suggest appropriate values.
>
> Try e.g. -1000 for the repository you don't want to upgrade from,
> for instance.

Forgive me... I guess, I'm just not getting it. Let me see if I get this 
right. I'm going to go in the opposite direction.

I want all the packages in the kde-redhat channels (stable, stable all, 
testing, testing all) to take top priority over everything. So I'm going to 
always get the upgrades from kde-redhat, and no other channels will ever 
supersede the packages from kde-redhat. So in order to do that I'll give the 
chanels (4 of them to be exact) a priority of 1000.

Next, I want Freshrpm packages. I want to set the priority so that any package 
that exists in the Freshrpms channel will get upgraded. I also want that it 
should never supercede packages from kde-redhat. And I want to be sure that 
those packages will never get superceded by any of the other repositories 
that I'm using. So I'll give it a priority of 800 (is that enough)?

After that, the 3 fc4 channels (os, updates, extras). Same deal. Won't ever 
supercede Freshrpms and kde-redhat, but everything else that I'm using will 
never supercede an fc4 channel so I'll give it a priority of 600 (is that 
enough)?

After that Livna with a priority of (400).

After that rpmforge and macromedia with priority of 200. Actually, the 
macromedia channel can be given just about anything as there is only one 
package in the channel, and that's the flash-plugin.

The local rpm-db is left at default with a priority of 0.

Am I getting, it? Will this ensure that I will get what I want, reliably? 
Anything else you can suggest before I make the alterations? Should I make 
these alterations?

I'm sure that with you're help we're going to get this to work.

Eli