On Thu, 27 Jun 2002, Alan R. Becker wrote: >Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 00:06:43 -0400 >From: Alan R. Becker <beckera@mail-now.com> >To: xfree86-list@redhat.com >Content-Type: text/plain >List-Id: Red Hat XFree86 list <xfree86-list.redhat.com> >Subject: Update Management > >I manage a group of servers, and keep them updated with >the help of RHN. Occasionally, I download the newest >updates and maintain my own repository of rpms for the >up2date utility to use. > >I just pulled the most recent updates for XFree86, and >found a new XFree86-4.1.0-25.i386.rpm (18.241M, June 14 02). >A few weeks ago, I had pulled XFree86-4.1.0-25.i386.rpm >(19.681M, April 26 02). Obviously, these 2 rpms are >very different, yet they are named identically. >Then I checked the .ia64 and .src rpms and saw a similar >situation. Isn't there supposed to be a version number >change whenever the package is updated? > >What's going on here ???? Yes, generally that is the way things are handled. In this case, some fonts had to be removed from the packages immediately, and the normal way of doing things was not fast enough to meet the requirements. As such the fonts were removed and the packages respun without changing the release number. I personally am upset about this decision myself and I was not part of the decision making process, however, as I am told, there was no time to debate about it, and the packages had to be updated ASAP. That is the reason for the changes occuring the way they did. Please note that this is a very unusual situation for us, and I believe it is the first time this has happened due to special circumstances. Also note that the packages are all signed properly with the Red Hat GPG key, and should verify correctly. I personally would have bumped the release number in a way that was compatible, however the reason that was not done if I understand correctly is that we also had to respin the ISO images with these changes, and bumping the release numbers would have meant completely regenerating the rpmdb, hdlist, and creating a lot more work. The tight time constraints that were in place did not allow the luxury to make the changes in the "proper" way. If you have further objections or complaints to this issue, please direct them at Red Hat support or customer relations to make your voice heard. Again, this type of issue is not something common, nor is it likely to occur again in the future. Hope this helps explain things. TTYL -- Mike A. Harris Shipping/mailing address: OS Systems Engineer 190 Pittsburgh Ave., Sault Ste. Marie, XFree86 maintainer Ontario, Canada, P6C 5B3 Red Hat Inc. http://www.redhat.com ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
