different behavior for RPM dependency handling between yum andapt

[Konstantin Riabitsev]

Rick Thomas wrote:
> 
> It seems to me that ("obsoletes" loop) is a configuration error that yum 
> should be checking for and complaining about -- so somebody can do 
> something about it!  Not a "fact of life" that should cause the 
> designers to drop an important feature.

Uh.. Mutually obsoleting packages are allowed. If they weren't 
allowed, then we would've chosen to just detect the loop and 
complain about it.

> But I'm not on the yum design team, so what do I know?  Maybe after I 
> retire I'll have time to work on this kind of stuff...

I *am* on the yum design team, and this subject has been mulled over 
a whole lot back when the problem of gated reinstalling zebra 
reinstalling gated came out. The result of the deliberations was that:

a) obsoletes are unlikely to happen within a lifetime of a release, 
so yum should do "update" and ignore obsoletes.
b) when going to a subsequent release, one should use "yum upgrade" 
so obsoletes can be resolved and applied.

This is a design feature and is documented.

-- 
Konstantin ("Icon") Riabitsev
Duke University Physics Sysadmin
www.phy.duke.edu/~icon/pubkey.asc