Andrei Thorp wrote:
Well, as far as I can tell, the problem is that this requires the updating of the 4050 packages we have at the moment. All of them. By hand. For rather limited gain.
Well, you don't get it as far as I can tell. As all paths stay the same, _not one single package_ has to be updated. That's what I mean with "compatible". "/usr/bin/file" is still "/usr/bin/file", but it could be a symlink instead of a file. Look at the .so libraries: /lib/libcap.so -> libcap.so.2 /lib/libcap.so.2 -> libcap.so.2.16 /lib/libcap.so.2.16 Programs are already doing this all the time: /bin/bunzip2 -> bzip2 /bin/bzcat -> bzip2 /bin/bzip2 The symlinking itself is obviously not a problem. And having easier package management is a big gain. For many users, their linux distribution is a kernel plus the packages they like. I for one can appreciate not having to use "pacman" to find out what package some file belongs to. I even wrote my own wrapper giving it package globs just because "pacman" doesn't have them everywhere, using "ls" and "find" for some of the "-Q" and "-S" tasks would be a big plus IMO. clemens