Re: Multistrap Extracting Order?

On Fri, 25 Jan 2013 11:18:16 +0000
Neil Williams <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Thu, 24 Jan 2013 10:51:59 -0500
> Andrew Bradford <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> > What happens is that my custom package gets extracted first, preinst
> > which would have setup the diversion doesn't get run, and then the
> > normal Debian package which my custom package "Replaces" gets
> > extracted.  This ends with the normal Debian package's files
> > overwriting my custom package's files.  Kind of the reverse of the
> > intention of my "Replaces" goal.
> 
> Move the replacement of the files into the postinst. Package the files
> in a unique location (/usr/share/custom-package-name/) and then move
> them into place in the postinst.

I'll try this out.

> > In the multistrap code, it seems the packages get sorted by name
> > before being extracted. I've not delved deep into the code yet, but
> > would a patch that sorts by "Depends" be a reasonable improvement
> > to multistrap?
> 
> No, because sorting by Depends relies on having a full dependency
> resolver. Multistrap passes all dependency resolution on to apt,
> there's no point inventing another resolver inside multistrap and apt
> does not export the dependency tree in any usable manner.
> 
> Extraction order is only allowed to be of importance when the preinst
> can be run - without the preinst, there's no point in second-guessing
> the extraction order. Alphabetical is better than unsorted (as it
> gives some indication of progress).

That makes sense.

> It might be possible to organise unpacking by Priority as this
> information is more readily available and much quicker to sort. Even
> then, it would only be a case of unpacking the Required before the
> Important and leaving Optional and Extra as a single alphabetical lump
> because there is no sane division between Optional and Extra. This is
> closer to how debootstrap typically works but I'm not convinced that
> it would actually add any useful behaviour in multistrap.

OK.

Thank you for the info, I'll try reorganizing my custom packages such
that I can work around these.

Thanks,
Andrew