installing only perl from testing

pedro-kun · 2010-07-30 23:44:11

Hello,

I wanted to upgrade my perl installation to v5.12 (the one in testing).
However, i don't want to use testing for anything else... Is this doable? I asked in another thread why the [core] perl was out-of-date but was told that there was a way to install specific [testing] packages (and also was. Would this work for something as perl?

If so, can anyone point me in the right direction?
Sorry if for some reason this isn't the right place to post this question.

Inxsible · 2010-07-30 23:48:15

enable testing repo. then a simple

sudo pacman -S perl

should do the trick.

Note however, that all dependencies of perl will also be downloaded from testing, if newer versions are available. But I guess, if you want the latest version of perl, you are probably ok with newer versions of its dependencies.

pedro-kun · 2010-07-30 23:52:09

But this could also cause other apps that need the older versions of the dependencies to break, am I right? That's my main concern.
But I guess I'll be giving it a try, then.

Thanks,
Pedro

Inxsible · 2010-07-30 23:55:41

pedro-kun wrote:

But this could also cause other apps that need the older versions of the dependencies to break, am I right? That's my main concern.
But I guess I'll be giving it a try, then.
Thanks,
Pedro

Yes. That's why its in testing !!

Are you sure you want the latest version of perl for some app? or do you just want it because a newer version of perl is available???

pedro-kun · 2010-07-31 00:04:13

Well, I like being up-to-date, but not to the point of risking such breakage, so I'll probably be sticking with 5.10 until 5.12 gets into [core] then.
I know this sounds like the reason is that "there's a newer perl and I want it" but it's just I like some of the packages here to be on the bleeding edge.
Since this update isn't as critical as when 5.10 got released, I'll wait :)

thanks for the help,
Pedro

Last edited by pedro-kun (2010-07-31 00:04:41)

falconindy · 2010-07-31 00:13:36

Inxsible wrote:

enable testing repo. then a simple
sudo pacman -S perl
should do the trick.
Note however, that all dependencies of perl will also be downloaded from testing, if newer versions are available. But I guess, if you want the latest version of perl, you are probably ok with newer versions of its dependencies.

No, this wont happen, and its exactly why cherry picking from testing is heavily discouraged. Dependencies, in general, are not versioned. If pacman finds all dependencies satisfied, it won't bother fetching anything when you ask it to install a single package.

Inxsible · 2010-07-31 00:14:12

fwiw, I have perl 5.12 installed from testing and everything works as expected. I haven't seen any breakage. Although, I didn't enable testing for perl. I enabled it for xorg18, when it was still in testing. and perl 5.12 got upgraded as well. But oh well !

I am not advocating that you upgrade as well....since many things might have changed since I upgraded way back when. YMMV

tomk · 2010-07-31 00:14:51

FYI the only supported way to use the testing repo is to place it at the top of your list in pacman.conf and run pacman -Syu.

pedro-kun · 2010-07-31 00:18:51

falconindy wrote:

No, this wont happen, and its exactly why cherry picking from testing is heavily discouraged. Dependencies, in general, are not versioned. If pacman finds all dependencies satisfied, it won't bother fetching anything when you ask it to install a single package.

Ok, I won't be upgrading it then. You've convinced me.

Thanks again for all the replies

Ari'osika · 2010-07-31 07:32:48

pedro-kun wrote:

falconindy wrote:
No, this wont happen, and its exactly why cherry picking from testing is heavily discouraged. Dependencies, in general, are not versioned. If pacman finds all dependencies satisfied, it won't bother fetching anything when you ask it to install a single package.
Ok, I won't be upgrading it then. You've convinced me.
Thanks again for all the replies

Aw man, I'm a little late. My suggestion was to download perl's source code and compile it. (That's I what I did, simply because I'm a wee-bit afraid of the testing-repo's haha).

pedro-kun · 2010-07-31 11:22:11

Ari'osika wrote:

Aw man, I'm a little late. My suggestion was to download perl's source code and compile it. (That's I what I did, simply because I'm a wee-bit afraid of the testing-repo's haha).

But if you install it from source, and some app has perl as one of its dependencies, how does pacman know that perl is installed? Don't you have to make a PKGBUILD for that?

Allan · 2010-07-31 12:08:49

tomk wrote:

FYI the only supported way to use the testing repo is to place it at the top of your list in pacman.conf and run pacman -Syu.

Exactly...

But if you are prepared to fix your own breakage, enable [testing] last and install the packages you need. The perl update is quite self contained so you should not run into too many issues.

Or... I hear rumours about a move out of [testing] in the next few days so you could just wait.

Ari'osika · 2010-07-31 23:12:28

pedro-kun wrote:

Ari'osika wrote:
Aw man, I'm a little late. My suggestion was to download perl's source code and compile it. (That's I what I did, simply because I'm a wee-bit afraid of the testing-repo's haha).
But if you install it from source, and some app has perl as one of its dependencies, how does pacman know that perl is installed? Don't you have to make a PKGBUILD for that?

It doesn't, which was my intention for doing so.. As a proficient "perl hacker", i like to write scripts that are cross-version compatible because sometimes an update such as 5.10 to 5.12 eliminate a particular function in favor of other similar, but different, function.

..And now I just realized; I forgot to mention why I did what I did in my previous post. Sorry

In other words; ignore my suggestion.

EDIT: forgot something important.

Last edited by Ari'osika (2010-07-31 23:30:37)

Arch Linux

#1 2010-07-30 23:44:11

installing only perl from testing

#2 2010-07-30 23:48:15

Re: installing only perl from testing

#3 2010-07-30 23:52:09

Re: installing only perl from testing

#4 2010-07-30 23:55:41

Re: installing only perl from testing

#5 2010-07-31 00:04:13

Re: installing only perl from testing

#6 2010-07-31 00:13:36

Re: installing only perl from testing

#7 2010-07-31 00:14:12

Re: installing only perl from testing

#8 2010-07-31 00:14:51

Re: installing only perl from testing

#9 2010-07-31 00:18:51

Re: installing only perl from testing

#10 2010-07-31 07:32:48

Re: installing only perl from testing

#11 2010-07-31 11:22:11

Re: installing only perl from testing

#12 2010-07-31 12:08:49

Re: installing only perl from testing

#13 2010-07-31 23:12:28

Re: installing only perl from testing

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