[issue145] Smarter dependency resolution for local installs
Andy Elvey at Labix Tracker
tracker at labix.org
Sat May 6 19:53:31 PDT 2006
Andy Elvey <andy.elvey at paradise.net.nz> added the comment:
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 locally (i.e. you've downloaded
say, a .deb file), 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. Great - 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!
----------
status: unread -> chatting
title: Smarter dependency resolution -> Smarter dependency resolution for local installs
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<http://tracker.labix.org/issue145>
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