way to attach triggered note to certain packages?

thetrivialstuff · 2009-09-10 20:04:23

Is there some way to make it so that the next time I upgrade something that affects one or more of certain packages (in this case: readline, python, rdiff-backup, or anything that depends on python) that I get a note in the output?

Here's what I'm trying to do: I have a server running a version of Arch that's a bit behind on most of its packages (I've learned that -Syu on an important system is a bad idea so I only ever upgrade that server very carefully). I just updated rdiff-backup on it, but the latest version needs python 2.6, but I can't upgrade python to 2.6 without also upgrading readline, and we all know what that does. There's no frakking way I'm touching readline while I'm logged in remotely; I'll deal with that when I'm physically in the server room and have some hours to spare.

So, I kludged rdiff-backup into working by copying a python 2.6 shared library from a more up-to-date system and it works fine now. Trouble is, when I do get around to updating other parts of that system I might've forgotten I did this, so I'd like to attach a big fat warning notice to pacman about it.

I have similar issues on my home system, where I've kludged the hell out of KDE in order to retain Konqueror 3.5 because Konqueror 4 sucks major balls (actually, it's getting better and I might finally give it another go soon). Every time I touch KDE I have to remember to do some dicey symlinking to divert all the new libraries into an alternate place so that they don't foul things up... Occasionally I forget and then it's fun to fix.

(PS: No, kdemod legacy doesn't work for me, and/or it breaks other things to use it.)

Last edited by thetrivialstuff (2009-09-10 20:27:03)

Allan · 2009-09-10 23:12:05

You mean apart from the line pacman already prints out...

thetrivialstuff · 2009-09-12 01:34:53

I suppose if I've added or replaced some files it'll sometimes die with the file conflict message, but I'd like a way to trigger something before it attempts the upgrade, e.g.

$ pacman -S python
resolving dependencies...
looking for inter-conflicts...

Targets (3): sqlite3-3.6.17-1  python-2.6.2-5  readline-6.0.004-1

python: Message from self: You previously hacked python to make rdiff-backup work.
Check /usr/lib/python* before upgrading.

readline: Message from self: Make sure you're not doing this over SSH, because upgrading
this package will probably make logins not work until other packages are manually updated.


Total Download Size:    15.39 MB
Total Installed Size:   62.30 MB

Proceed with installation? [Y/n]

DonVla · 2009-09-12 02:04:21

@thetrivialstuff
hahaha, good idea!
but i don´t think pacman will support one´s forgetfulness.

sand_man · 2009-09-12 02:43:13

One way to avoid this readline problem is having tcsh installed as a backup (learned that from FreeBSD)

Sorry for the slightly off topic btw

Last edited by sand_man (2009-09-12 02:43:54)

shining · 2009-09-12 11:19:41

thetrivialstuff wrote:

I suppose if I've added or replaced some files it'll sometimes die with the file conflict message, but I'd like a way to trigger something before it attempts the upgrade, e.g.

$ pacman -S python
resolving dependencies...
looking for inter-conflicts...

Targets (3): sqlite3-3.6.17-1  python-2.6.2-5  readline-6.0.004-1

python: Message from self: You previously hacked python to make rdiff-backup work.
Check /usr/lib/python* before upgrading.

readline: Message from self: Make sure you're not doing this over SSH, because upgrading
this package will probably make logins not work until other packages are manually updated.

You will have to write your own pacman wrapper to do something like that.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-09-10 20:04:23

way to attach triggered note to certain packages?

#2 2009-09-10 23:12:05

Re: way to attach triggered note to certain packages?

#3 2009-09-12 01:34:53

Re: way to attach triggered note to certain packages?

#4 2009-09-12 02:04:21

Re: way to attach triggered note to certain packages?

#5 2009-09-12 02:43:13

Re: way to attach triggered note to certain packages?

#6 2009-09-12 11:19:41

Re: way to attach triggered note to certain packages?

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