Here is an interesting idea....

Here's another take on how to get grab to do updates between major
versions of a distro release...for example from redhat 7.2 to 7.3  or
from 7.3 to 8.0 when it comes out.


Build a set of glue rpms...that just do rpm database manipulations...to
account for all the odd ball changes between major release..like the
renaming of packages...and the splitting of dependancies.

Grab should be able to make such mating rpm's by just comparing the
provides and requirements of packages in two "pure" ftp
directories...one for the base distro you currently have...and one for
the base distro you want to upgrade to. Grab can compare things in those
two trees and make a set of "empty" rpms that just do rpm database
manipulations to satify any wierd changes in the dependances....so if
you update to the new base distro + the mating rpms you get a system
without any dependancy issues...
Then what you can do is remove any of the mating rpm...because the
upgrade to the new distro version would give you a system that doesn't
actually use any of the dependancies provided by the mating rpms....so
you can safely remove them since nothing on your updated system will
require them.

This idea should work as long as the two ftp trees are totally
self-fulfilling in terms of deps...which base redhat distro trees are.


Any thoughts?

-jef