Andrei Thorp wrote: > Well, as far as I can tell, the problem is that this requires the > updating of the 4050 packages we have at the moment. All of them. By > hand. For rather limited gain. Well, you don't get it as far as I can tell. As all paths stay the same, _not one single package_ has to be updated. That's what I mean with "compatible". "/usr/bin/file" is still "/usr/bin/file", but it could be a symlink instead of a file. Look at the .so libraries: /lib/libcap.so -> libcap.so.2 /lib/libcap.so.2 -> libcap.so.2.16 /lib/libcap.so.2.16 Programs are already doing this all the time: /bin/bunzip2 -> bzip2 /bin/bzcat -> bzip2 /bin/bzip2 The symlinking itself is obviously not a problem. And having easier package management is a big gain. For many users, their linux distribution is a kernel plus the packages they like. I for one can appreciate not having to use "pacman" to find out what package some file belongs to. I even wrote my own wrapper giving it package globs just because "pacman" doesn't have them everywhere, using "ls" and "find" for some of the "-Q" and "-S" tasks would be a big plus IMO. clemens
