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

Sat Jan 7 15:24:35 CET 2012

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
+