On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 at 01:08:10PM -0500, Jeff Horelick wrote: > Hey all, > > I have a suggestion to possibly make rebuilds a bit less painful (or > non-existant). I think this is a good idea because it seems like right now, > even before there was a new rebuild (ffmpeg/x264) in testing, there's > already another on the horizon (linjpeg/libpng, and it's a big one) and when > this isn't the case, there's usually a rebuild, when it leaves testing, > another rebuild comes in within days and so on. > > My suggestion would be to do what Debian does and when there's a library > release with a new soname, bump the old package and "rename" it (or for new > packages just do it from the start) and make the package name include the > soname version (like libjpeg7, libpng12, libtorrent-rasterbar4 and so on) > and when the soname is bumped upstream, just make libjpeg8 or libpng13 or > libtorrent-rasterbar5. This does clutter the repos a bit, but it pretty much > negates the need for rebuilds since (i believe) when the new GNOME for > example is released, it'll automagically build against libjpeg8 and libpng13 > instead of the old ones and eventually, almost no packages will be using the > old ones. Once the package list for a large rebuild like the libpng/libjpeg > one is down to 3 or 4 items after like 3 months, you can probably rebuild > them and pull libjpeg7/libpng12 from the repos. > > This would likely require 2 changes to pacman to implement: > 1. Pacman would have to know that libpng8 is the newer version of libpng7 > and prompt users to install that (or do it as a upgrade keeping the old > package). > 2. Pacman would have to know something was removed from the repo and somehow > notify the user and possibly give them a [Y/n] to remove it from their > system. (I personally think this is a good idea to implement anyway). > > -JD I'm quite sure Debian doesn't do that. IIUC they include older versions of libraries If other packages need that version specifically. Your suggestion has a technical flow btw. A situation where a newer package will link against libfoo8 while a dependency will still link against libfoo7 will be common. If It's all about reducing rebuild work, Arch should switch to static linking ;)
