[Sussex] Upgrading to KDE 3.1

[Steve Dobson]

Angelo

On 30 May 2003 at 10:05 Angelo Servini wrote:
<snip my hints>
> Ok, when I have this up and running. How do I set about 
> removing the old KDE? or is that not an option?

I wouldn't bother as that will remove anything that depends
on any of the KDE packages you remove.  More trouble than it's
worth.

The problem with binary package systems is the dependence of
packages on each other.  The Ports System from FreeBSD doesn't
suffer this as you just compile the packages and then run
it's installer to load it into you system.

Debian put a lot of work getting the a fine grained dependence
system working.  The problem with this is unless the package
is at the top of the dependency tree (nothing depends upon it)
removing it remove all the those packages that have declared
that they depend upon it.  A problem for you trying to install
a version of software that is more advanced that in that
version of the distro.

The up side to all this is that it makes bug fixing trivial.
You add a newer version of the package to the archives and
when someone does the old "apt-get update/upgrade" their system
is simply fixed.

If you really want to see the advantages just look at the patch
system of Solaris - its pants by comparison!  This patch obsoletes
this patch, because it as a later version of library x.  Patches
have version number.  It's a lot of complexity that is just 
taken care of in Debian.  If you look at the Java download
pages just look for the "Java Jumbo patches" that are available
to fix Solaris.

Sorry I had flip the rant switch after last night.  There wasn't
a good rant so I forgot what the setting was :-D

Steve