Feature idea: checkpoints/rollback

[Cliff Wells]

This isn't a new idea, but I don't know if it's been discussed here
before.

It'd be useful if Smart could have a couple of facilities for doing
rollbacks of upgrades.   I'm thinking of two mechanisms:

1) Checkpoints.  When a package is to be upgraded/removed, save a copy
of the package (and any dependencies) that will be changed, along with
some metadata that describes the checkpoint.   I wouldn't suggest doing
this on every update, just if the user specifies it.

2) Auto-checkpointing of specified packages.   I've been using Chromium
lately (it rocks) and every now and again, they ship a broken version.
It'd be nice to be able to specify that some particular package should
never be altered without a checkpoint so that it can be rolled back to a
previous version.

I know there's a lot of housekeeping that would have to be done (too
many checkpoints could clutter up the filesystem in short order), but
this seems to be a commonly requested feature in general (google
"<distro> rollback") that might give Smart a needed boost in adoption.

BTW, I recently switched from Fedora to Ubuntu, and I have to say, Smart
continues to be far superior to the native package management tools on
both platforms.

Regards,
Cliff


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