On 2023-03-26 07:55:06 (+0100), Spencer Collyer wrote: > I'm installing a new system, and using the instructions at > https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman/Tips_and_tricks sections 2.5 > and 2.6 to get the list of packages to install from my current system. > > When I run the `pacman -S --needed - < pkglist.txt` part, I get a few > cases where pacman says "There are N providers available for X`. There are multiple situations where one thing is provided by several packages. This is also referred to as a "virtual provides", as the thing that the packages provide usually do not exist as a package themselves. Good examples are: * jack2 and pipewire-jack both providing jack (more specifically both provide libjack.so), which is required by a multitude of pro-audio packages * qemu-virtiofsd and virtiofsd both providing virtiofsd-provider (required by QEMU) > What I did for those cases is look up the providers in the `Package > Search` page on the archlinux.org and chose the most recent one. Is > that a reasonable strategy to use? > > Is there a better way to make the decision? The answer to that is "it depends". Depending on what you want to do and how you want to run your system, you can choose one or the other. To stick with above examples: * use jack2 if you want to use jack2 and pulseaudio. use pipewire-jack if you want to run all your audio via pipewire and have it also provide JACK. * use qemu-virtiofsd if you want to stick with what upstream QEMU provides until it is deprecated (soon). Use virtiofsd if you want to rely on something written in Rust and live in the future now already. Generally, you will likely want to investigate a bit before installing as not all providers of a thing are the same of course :) I hope this cleared up some of the confusion. Best, David -- https://sleepmap.de
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