[Mageia-dev] Orphans - those poor orphans . . .

[Wolfgang Bornath]

2012/1/7 Sander Lepik <sander.lepik at eesti.ee>:
> 07.01.2012 13:39, Wolfgang Bornath kirjutas:
>>
>> Of course this is one way to find bugs in packages. But what about the
>> documented (in German) case where
>>  - after fresh installation, reboot (ok) and updates right after
>> installation I was presented with a list of more than 100 "orphans".
>>  - I ran 'urpme --auto-orphans' and rebooted
>>  - several system services (which started successfully after
>> installation) refused to start now because of missing files
>>
>> Of course urpmi was not the culprit because it only checks
>> dependencies. But that did matter in that situation. The auto-orphans
>> function obviously listed packages which may have no dependencies but
>> are needed by the system. That's why I do not complain about urpmi but
>> about the whole function. As long as this function is only based on
>> package dependencies it is not safe to use it.
>
> Did you choose custom install and unchecked some options? Or did you use
> LiveCD maybe? Anyway.. function is not to blame. Next time copy those
> packages that are going to be uninstalled. And they can be rechecked. Which
> are needed and why they get orphaned.

Used the full DVD (32-bit) Mageia 2 Alpha 2
 - minimal install with X
 - after installation and reboot everything was ok
 - setup the package media (dedicated mirror) and did 'urpmi -auto-update'
 - I did NOT install or remove one single package manually
 - after that urpmi showed a list of more than 100 orphans
 - used 'urpme -auto-orphans
 - at reboot the start messages showed several errors concerning
crond, network-up, postfix, display manager, etc. - system start
stopped before x was started. Repeated the boot process with same
result.

A side question is why I got so many orphans in a minimal system with
only around 700 packages in total and only around 2 or 3 dozens of
updates (all this happened not long after Alpha 2 release.)

Of course urpmi is not the culprit, it is the shortcomings of the
function as it is. It should just not be there if its use could lead
to such behavior, no matter where the cause comes from. Simply said: a
gasoline brand should not be sold if it could do damage to the car's
motor, no matter which of the components of the fluid causes the
damage..

Anyhow, I will repeat the same operation when Alpha 2 is released in a
couple of days and as soon as the system shows orphans I will document
that list and (if the same problem arises) dmesg output if available.
What else do you need for a reasonable documentation?

-- 
wobo