Salix Forums

Hello,

I tried a simple upgrade today, as many patches appears for Slackware, and I don't understand why so many NEW packages have to be installed (agg boost gtkglext gnash):
It is true, as these new packages are dependencies for upgraded packages !
(look if no dependency checks is done):
Is this behaviour expected ?

Fred

So you are saying that 4 new packages are "so many"?
gnash replaces flash. agg is a really small package. I don't know what depends on boost (I guess gnash), but who cares?

Hello

thenktor wrote:So you are saying that 4 new packages are "so many"?

4 is not a lot, but 4 new dependencies, when upgrading only 7 packages: it s a lot.
I already made an upgrade after installation, yesterday's upgrade was only about new packages (between Feb. 2 and Feb. 10).

gnash replaces flash. agg is a really small package. I don't know what depends on boost (I guess gnash), but who cares?

Well, are we using Slackware here (even slack for lazy slackers ) ?
It may be up to the administrator to decide if gnash replaces flash!

When upgrading a package I am expecting this package to be upgraded, and that's all.
There should not be new dependencies installed at the same time...

If Salix handles dependencies (and a really good work has been done), I think (but I may be wrong) that it should not be a reason to install useless packages. And to bypass administrator decision.

If a package needs dependencies, then it needs them from scratch (installation), and upgrade should not add new packages (unless one dependency have been forgotten, it may happens).

Fred

As a responsible system administrator, you should know that old flash versions are a major security hole. So, in 64bit systems, where there is no up-to-date flash plugin, flash has been replaced with gnash. The decision to keep a security hole as big as flash in your system lies with you, the system administrator, of course. You can instruct slapt-get to not ever upgrade your old flash package by editing the slapt-get configuration file, if you really want to. But it would be completely irresponsible from Salix to leave that security hole there as if nothing happened.

hello

you are absolutely right, Flash plugin for 64b linux is no more supported and should not been used anymore!
I am currently testing Salix 64b, and didn't think about it when I installed Flash plugin.
As Flash is provided through Salix repository, it makes sense not to provide this package anymore.

I removed flash-plugin by hand, and relaunched an upgrade, and it happens what is supposed to: an upgrade

root@tosh:~# LANG=en_US slapt-get --upgrade
Reading Package Lists...Done
The following packages will be upgraded:
apr apr-util expat openssl spkg-pkgtools sudo
6 upgraded, 0 reinstalled, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove, 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 3.5MB of archives.
After unpacking 769.0kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [y/N]

The decision to replace Flash-plugin by gnash is up to packager decision.
As Salix is not Slackware, it makes sense to replace flash for gnash.

Fred