Aaron Griffin wrote: > On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 2:45 PM, David C. Rankin > <drankinatty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> checking package integrity... >> (12/12) checking for file conflicts >> [#############################################] 100% >> error: could not prepare transaction >> error: failed to commit transaction (conflicting files) >> ttf-dejavu: /usr/share/fonts/TTF/DejaVuSans-Bold.ttf exists in filesystem >> ttf-dejavu: /usr/share/fonts/TTF/DejaVuSans-BoldOblique.ttf exists in filesystem >> ttf-dejavu: /usr/share/fonts/TTF/DejaVuSans-ExtraLight.ttf exists in filesystem >> <snip - remaining dejavu variants> >> Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded. >> >> And "Yes", DejaVu fonts did exist in /usr/share/fonts/TTF softlinked to >> /usr/share/fonts/truetype, but why does pacman care? If the same font already >> exists in a directory, that shouldn't cause the install to blow up -- should it? > > pacman cares because pacman will try it's hardest to never ever break > your system unless you say so. If pacman has no knowledge of files in > your system, it'd be amazingly stupid to blindly overwrite them. What > happens if I wrote a big long OOo document and saved it (stupidly) as > /usr/bin/mydoc and then pacman decided to install an app named > "mydoc". Poof, lost my work. > > I know the above is a contrived example, but it serves to illustrate > the point: pacman is not in control of your system. You are. Pacman > will never say "I know better than you, so I'll just replace this with > what I think it should be". Instead it will say "woah woah woah... you > did something I don't understand. You deal with it and tell me when > you figured it out" > That really was a really good "contrived" example, but it makes sense. pacman is coded to be conservative and doesn't have and way of checking whether what it is overwriting is a font file or something else and since it isn't a config file there isn't a md5 hash comparison done to determine whether to overwrite or install as .pacnew. So in this case pacman just balked at installing the font, issued the warnings and quit. Now I (at least think I) understand. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com
