Can we release a new version of pacman 2.X that downloads deps of pacman when it finds a pacman update? I don't know how much work this is.
The problem there is that in order for that to work, that 2.X release would need to remain in the repos for a while, to ensure that most users have an upgradeable version. If we put the new 2.X release out there for, say, a week, some users might miss the upgrade and run into the same issue.
Very true. Again we run into the problem of releasing quickly or releasing "stabley". We have to make a choice: keep back pacman 3 to make the upgrade smoother or move to pacman 3 and force some users to go hunting for a solution. Either way we choose people will be critical, so this is where applying it to some sort of goals comes in handy.
Having the feature to download deps of pacman as well as pacman when doing the "New pacman is available" steps makes a lot of sense for situations like this in the future.
True, but that's just an issue of foresight. It took years to actually manifest as an issue, and even then it's rather minor.
Sure, minor because there's a solution. Not a directly apparent solution but one that people could search for. Jason