[arch-dev-public] Automating package conflict resolution whenever possible (xorgproto/libxfont dependency conflict)

[Baptiste Jonglez]

On 14-02-18, Allan McRae via arch-dev-public wrote:
> Just because I had to look up the details of this....
> 
> 
> - xorgproto replaces a lot of packages, including fontsproto:
>  :: Replace fontsproto with extra/xorgproto? [Y/n]
> 
> - libxfont requires fontsproto, so this causes the following:
>  :: libxfont: removing fontsproto breaks dependency 'fontsproto>=2.1.3'
> 
> 
> - people with systems older than 2016-11-16, may have libxfont as
> xorg-server depended on it until that time.  Now xorg-server depends on
> libxfont2.
> 
> - libxfont2 does not replace libxfont, as it is a completely different API.
> 
> - libxfont was removed from the Arch repos somewhere in April or May
> 2017.  So nothing official depends on libxfont.
> 
> 
> I don't think it is unreasonable to expect people to run "pacman -Qi
> libxfont", see it was installed as a dependency and no package depends
> on it and remove it.  There also does not seem to be a correct way of us
> to handle this - joys of rolling release!

Thanks for the detailed analysis with the dates.  I see now that using the
replaces() field in this case is technically incorrect.

I was annoyed by this issue which seemed simple to fix, and consequently
pissed off by Eli's violent and insulting reaction on the bug tracker.

I still think it is wholly inappropriate to treat people this way
(whatever the reasons, eleventh reopen request or not), but Eli, please
accept my apologies for rounding up on you based on murky assumptions.

> Funny thing...  people using yaourt probably removed this package as I
> believe it highlights dependencies that are no longer needed after an
> upgrade!

> On 14/02/18 22:28, Florian Pritz via arch-dev-public wrote:
> > How about having this feature in pacman, maybe with an indicator if the
> > package is still in a repository?
> 
> pacman -Qtd

For the same list, but filtered on packages that are not in any repository
("foreign" packages):

pacman -Qtdm
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