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quayasil

Member

Registered: 2008-11-09

Posts: 112

a few questions about package management (from Gentoo user)

:-)

Some may sound strange but I'm used to the Gentoo philosphy...

1. The Wiki (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xfce) says that I can install the XFCE by:
    pacman -S xfce4
Unfortunately, in the repository (http://archlinux.org/packages/search/?a … ce&limit=0) there is no such package (xfce4). OK, I can read the wiki but if not -- how can I figure out that there is such package and its name is xfce4 (some distributions call it XFCE, xfce-4, xfce, Xfce, XFCE4, ...)? How areother such metapackages and how can I find them?

2. Gentoo provides package (portage) "categorization" -- I can easily locate for example: all ported network analyzers (via WWW: http://gentoo-portage.com/Browse). Can I do something similar under Arch?

3. Is there something like a "virtual package"? I choose one of many syslogs, crons, JREs, LaTeX distributions etc. A Gentoo virtual package indicates that *any* (no matter which in particular) syslog (cron, JRE, LaTeX, ...) is installed. Is there anything like this under Arch?

4. Is there anything like a "slot" -- a possibility to install two versions of the same package independently (for example: JRE 1.4 and JRE 1.6) at the same time?

5. What happens when package blockage occures: A requires B, C requires D, unfortunately B and D cannot coexist?

6. It's happened (under FreeBSD and Gentoo) that the version X.Y of A package required B, but the version X.Y+2 of A required B not to be installed (it occured several times under GNOME). How does the pacman deals with such problems?

Thanks in advance,
best regards,
Marek

Xyne

Administrator/PM

Registered: 2008-08-03

Posts: 6,965

Website

Re: a few questions about package management (from Gentoo user)

First off, welcome to Arch!

1. The Wiki (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xfce) says that I can install the XFCE by:
    pacman -S xfce4
Unfortunately, in the repository (http://archlinux.org/packages/search/?a … ce&limit=0) there is no such package (xfce4). OK, I can read the wiki but if not -- how can I figure out that there is such package and its name is xfce4 (some distributions call it XFCE, xfce-4, xfce, Xfce, XFCE4, ...)? How areother such metapackages and how can I find them?

xfce4 is a "group", not a metapackage (although there is an ongoing discussion about ditching groups for metapackages here). To list available groups, you can do this:

pacman -Sg

Check the pacman manpage for more details.

2. Gentoo provides package (portage) "categorization" -- I can easily locate for example: all ported network analyzers (via WWW: http://gentoo-portage.com/Browse). Can I do something similar under Arch?

I don't think that's directly possible*. You can search through package names and descriptions with

pacman -Ss <term>

The ABS tree under var (if you've installed it) seems to have some organizational tree but I don't think that applies to the repos.

3 and 4: dunno
5: Pacman will complain about conflicts and prevent installation. In some cases I think you can modify the PKGBUILD and re-install it to get around that*.

6. It's happened (under FreeBSD and Gentoo) that the version X.Y of A package required B, but the version X.Y+2 of A required B not to be installed (it occured several times under GNOME). How does the pacman deals with such problems?

I think pacman removes orphaned packages during upgrades*, but if not, you can list them with

pacman -Qdt

and remove them with

pacman -Rs $(pacman -Qdtq)

*Someone who knows more will be able to give a better answer.

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finferflu

Forum Fellow

From: Manchester, UK

Registered: 2007-06-21

Posts: 1,899

Website

Re: a few questions about package management (from Gentoo user)

2. Not sure how this project is doing, but you can have a look at Pacnet, and refer to this thread.

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Profjim

Member

From: NYC

Registered: 2008-03-24

Posts: 658

Re: a few questions about package management (from Gentoo user)

2. Gentoo provides package (portage) "categorization" -- I can easily locate for example: all ported network analyzers (via WWW: http://gentoo-portage.com/Browse). Can I do something similar under Arch?

3. Is there something like a "virtual package"? I choose one of many syslogs, crons, JREs, LaTeX distributions etc. A Gentoo virtual package indicates that *any* (no matter which in particular) syslog (cron, JRE, LaTeX, ...) is installed. Is there anything like this under Arch?

As finferflu says, there is an existing categorization project.

Groups can be replaced with metapackages (see the discussion Xyne links to) without necessarily changing anything in pacman/libalpm. This is primarily a matter of changing the organization of the repos. Similarly, we could implement virtual packages without necessarily changing anything in pacman either. We could have a package cron-virtual and the various cron implementations could "provide" it, and packages which required some cron implementation could "depend" on it. It would be useful if pacman knew to not allow users to install these packages directly; but again, the main work here would be a matter of repo organization. There is nothing of this sort in place now. (At least, not on any widespread basis.)

4. Is there anything like a "slot" -- a possibility to install two versions of the same package independently (for example: JRE 1.4 and JRE 1.6) at the same time?

There's no general mechanism for that, but it can be implemented in a package-by-package way. Compare python and python2.4, or db, db4.1 and db4.5.

Profjim

Member

From: NYC

Registered: 2008-03-24

Posts: 658

Re: a few questions about package management (from Gentoo user)

I think pacman removes orphaned packages during upgrades*, but if not, you can list them with

pacman -Qdt

and remove them with

pacman -Rs $(pacman -Qdtq)

Pacman (well, ok, pacman-color called through yaourt) has been leaving orphaned packages in place during my upgrades. Either pacman or yaourt has been notifying me that the orphaned packages are there, though. And as Xyne says, they're easy to remove.

stonecrest

Member

From: Boulder

Registered: 2005-01-22

Posts: 1,190

Re: a few questions about package management (from Gentoo user)

3. Is there something like a "virtual package"? I choose one of many syslogs, crons, JREs, LaTeX distributions etc. A Gentoo virtual package indicates that *any* (no matter which in particular) syslog (cron, JRE, LaTeX, ...) is installed. Is there anything like this under Arch?

Yes. When a package "provides" another, that which it provides is essentially a virtual package. Any pkgbuild that uses provides=(foo) is making use of this.

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