[Yum] multilib repos (was: nVidia rpms ...)

[Axel Thimm]

On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 11:14:45AM -0500, seth vidal wrote:
> On Fri, 2004-12-03 at 17:22 +0200, Panu Matilainen wrote:
> > On Fri, 2004-12-03 at 12:29 +0100, Dag Wieers wrote:
> > > > So perhaps we should carefully decide which i386 packages to add to
> > > > x86_64 repos? [...]
> > > I refuse. The behaviour of Yum is clearly broken, people do not
> > > expect to have all binary archs installed just because they are
> > > available and the arch is unspecified. People are not supposed
> > > to know in what archs a package comes.
> > 
> > The problem is with the multilib monster and RH packaging, not
> > yum. If the you have libfoo.i386 and libfoo.x86_64 which don't
> > share any files then installing separately is not a
> > problem. However several such packages in FC and RHEL do have
> > common files, in which case installing them separately fails with
> > file conflicts (and you need to use --force to override, sometimes
> > with "interesting" results) but if they're installed
> > simultaneously rpmlib just "swallows" the conflict. Multilib isn't
> > called sick without a reason...
> 
> There's also an issue of consistency of interface:
> 
> yum splits the concept of acceptable arches for into two branches ,
> right now, which is more or less the 64bit arches and the 32bit arches
> 
> That's so it can compare the 32bit arches against each either to find
> the 'best' one for 32bit and the same for the 64bit arches. But so
> they're not compared against each other.
> 
> so since yum install foo on an i686 installs the best arch of foo for
> the arch branches available - it stands to reason, at least to me, that
> you'd want BOTH multiarch branches on a multiarch machine.
> 
> If you want to be more specific then you should specify the arch on the
> command line: 
> yum install foo.x86_64

Could yum have a switch to toggle between
when-I-skip-the-arch-pull-all-archs and
when-I-skip-the-arch-pull-native-only?

All x86_64 repos will also have an i386 repo. There are three modes of
operation:
o keep them separate. But sometimes users do need i386 on x86_64, so
  they would activate the i386 repo and we get to the next model:
o Put them into one (currently practice outside of RH). You get too
  much for what you asked.
o Have the repo maintainer  hand pick the interesting i386 packages to
  add to the x86_64 repo (like RH does). This will be error prone, of
  course, and still some users may require more and get back to the
  second model.

I'd prefer putting it all into one basket and have the resolver pick a
minimal set of (native) packages, unless told otherwise. If a switch
in yum.conf like compatarchs = [always|minimal] could be created, that
would be great. Is there any chance for that?

> this also makes a bit more sense when you compare it to the remove
> command:
> 
> yum remove foo
> 
> will remove all the installed archs.
> 
> not just the 64bit arch
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-- 
Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net
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