Why pacman do not prompt I have installed that package???

iamybj · 2010-03-21 07:27:40

I found that pacman do not prompt installed packages. It leads to reinstalling packages.
It's a bad situation...

.:B:. · 2010-03-21 07:33:05

root@hermes stijn pacman -S xbmc-svn
warning: xbmc-svn-28256-1 is up to date -- reinstalling
resolving dependencies...
looking for inter-conflicts...

Targets (1): xbmc-svn-28256-1  

Total Download Size:    31,00 MB
Total Installed Size:   82,91 MB

Proceed with installation? [Y/n]

Funny...

Allan · 2010-03-21 07:50:46

iamybj wrote:

It's a bad situation...

And how would that be bad?

ezzetabi · 2010-03-21 08:32:22

The behavior you get with --needed should be default... I also always wondered why this design choice.

ngoonee · 2010-03-21 09:00:07

ezzetabi wrote:

The behavior you get with --needed should be default... I also always wondered why this design choice.

Why 'should be'?

ezzetabi · 2010-03-21 09:01:55

I do not made the choice, the point is: why by default pacman reinstall an already present package?

hbekel · 2010-03-21 09:40:40

ezzetabi wrote:

I do not made the choice, the point is: why by default pacman reinstall an already present package?

Because pacman assumes that the user always knows best. It will not make assumptions on the user's behalf unless it has explicitly been allowed to do so. That's why --needed is an option and not the default behaviour.

iamybj · 2010-03-21 15:12:56

.:B:. wrote:

root@hermes stijn pacman -S xbmc-svn
warning: xbmc-svn-28256-1 is up to date -- reinstalling
resolving dependencies...
looking for inter-conflicts...

Targets (1): xbmc-svn-28256-1  

Total Download Size:    31,00 MB
Total Installed Size:   82,91 MB

Proceed with installation? [Y/n]

Funny...

Er...I did not see it exactly.....
But I still think the default behaviour should be that pacman refuse to install it if it was installed,

Xyne · 2010-03-21 15:33:22

I think every time you use pacman, an Arch developer should show up at your house, bake you some cookies, and then walk you through the operation.

Back on topic, if you tell pacman to re-install a package specifically, wtf should it say "um, no, I refuse, that's already installed". If you want that to be the default behavior, create an alias with "--needed".

*edit*
The point here is that the approach we have now assumes the user knows what he's doing, whereas requiring an option to enable this assumes that the user is not paying attention to what he's doing and needs someone to look out for him.

Arch assumes the former in general, not the latter. That's what Ubuntu is for.

Last edited by Xyne (2010-03-21 15:36:02)

mianka · 2010-03-21 16:13:29

Applause!

ezzetabi · 2010-03-21 16:15:11

Actually you could give almost the same answer if the default was the opposite and had to use something like --force-reinstall:

no-one wrote:

Back on topic, if you tell pacman to synchronize (-S) a package specifically, wtf should it say "It is already syncronized, but I install it anyways needlessy". If you want that to be the default behavior, create an alias with "--force-reinstall".
*edit*
The point here is that the approach we have now assumes the user knows what he's doing, whereas requiring an option to enable this assumes that the user is not paying attention to what he's doing and needs someone to look out for him.

Edit: funny world... empty answers got applauses. :S

Last edited by ezzetabi (2010-03-21 16:16:00)

Xyne · 2010-03-21 16:32:31

@ezzetabi

If pacman had a way to check if the package's local files had been changed (e.g.. by hash comparison) then I would agree. In such a case a synchronization should only re-install (resync) a package if there have been changes, and the user should be able to pass a "--force" flag to force a resync even if pacman detects that there haven't been any.

Unfortunately, we don't have such a system. In the absence of such, it makes more sense to resync the package when told to do so as it can't determine if it's truly necessary or not. This means that when a user issues the sync command, he is guaranteed to get a synced package, which is what the command is supposed to do.

*edited for typos*

Last edited by Xyne (2010-03-21 16:33:54)

fthieme · 2010-03-25 10:06:32

The times I miss "--needed" as default option, is when I install groups where I already have installed some packages of this group. Every time I see myself starting pacman twice. First without and then with "--needed".

I mean whenever I explicit say "pacman install foo" and I already have foo, I expect pacman to just install foo, as I know what I'm doing. Or maybe it should say "You already have foo, do you really want (Y/N)?". But when I install a group and there are single packages already installed, then I want pacman to just install the rest of the group, not the packages that I already have.

I see that this is a break in consistency, but maybe its more that what the user wants. At least its more what I want
Maybe it could just be solved with the silly question "foo, bar and something other are already installed, do you want do install them again (Y/N)?"

Arch Linux

#1 2010-03-21 07:27:40

Why pacman do not prompt I have installed that package???

#2 2010-03-21 07:33:05

Re: Why pacman do not prompt I have installed that package???

#3 2010-03-21 07:50:46

Re: Why pacman do not prompt I have installed that package???

#4 2010-03-21 08:32:22

Re: Why pacman do not prompt I have installed that package???

#5 2010-03-21 09:00:07

Re: Why pacman do not prompt I have installed that package???

#6 2010-03-21 09:01:55

Re: Why pacman do not prompt I have installed that package???

#7 2010-03-21 09:40:40

Re: Why pacman do not prompt I have installed that package???

#8 2010-03-21 15:12:56

Re: Why pacman do not prompt I have installed that package???

#9 2010-03-21 15:33:22

Re: Why pacman do not prompt I have installed that package???

#10 2010-03-21 16:13:29

Re: Why pacman do not prompt I have installed that package???

#11 2010-03-21 16:15:11

Re: Why pacman do not prompt I have installed that package???

#12 2010-03-21 16:32:31

Re: Why pacman do not prompt I have installed that package???

#13 2010-03-25 10:06:32

Re: Why pacman do not prompt I have installed that package???

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