[issue145] Smarter dependency resolution

[Andy Elvey at Labix Tracker]

New submission from Andy Elvey <andy.elvey at paradise.net.nz>:

Hi - 
  I have a couple of things which could (imo) really make Smart 
even more user-friendly (and it's good in that area now). All comments 
are meant to be very constructive, and hopefully will come across that 
way ... :-)

  When installing a file (whether it be a .deb or .rpm, and whether I'm
doing a local install or from a remote repository), I'd 
find it ***really useful*** if (when Smart scans the system) it would 
show -

a) Which dependencies have been found (i.e. are already installed)
b) The version of the dependencies installed (and, if the version 
is not recent enough, Smart would **offer to upgrade it** 
c) Those dependencies that are not yet installed (and again, Smart
would offer to install them). 
  
In other words, something like this - (hopefully this table 
will come out ok, not screwed-up ....) 

+-------------+------------------+----------------------+
| Dependency  | Version Required | Version Found        |          
+-------------+------------------+----------------------+
| foo         |  >= 1.4.5        |  1.4.7               | 
| bar         |  >= 2.3          |  2.1 - will upgrade  | 
| baz         |  >= 0.7          |  None - will install | 
| ... etc     |                  |                      |    

 Really useful, and (imo) really smart!  
                        
 I've often had the situation that in using Smart, it has found a 
dependency that is not installed, and it simply says "Unmet dependency
 foo" and grinds to a halt. ( This usually happens when trying to install 
a package locally.) 
 My "use case" is that I'm on Fedora 5. Fedora, unfortunately,
has **nowhere near** the range of packages that Debian-based distros do. 
Because of this, it would be **really good** if I could d/l a .deb (of an app
that Fedora may not have), then use Smart to install it, and it would do 
the above-mentioned three things. Fantastic!! The best of both worlds!
The package-range of Debian, the security of Fedora, and a package-manager
(Smart) that doesn't care if you throw it a deb or rpm.  
  
 A possibly very cool way of doing the above (finding the already-
installed dependencies) may be to use Beagle. Many Linux distros include 
it now. It is fast and pretty thorough in
its searches. For those distros that don't have it, it may well be worth
making it a Smart dependency. If it would help to make the above things 
work, it'd be worth it, imo.....
 Just my 2c worth - looking forward to seeing your comments, and 
keep up the great work!

----------
messages: 473
nosy: latte
priority: wish
project: smart
status: unread
title: Smarter dependency resolution

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Labix issue tracker <tracker at labix.org>
<http://tracker.labix.org/issue145>
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