[pacman-dev] Downgradability...sort of....

[Aaron Griffin]

On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 2:36 AM, Jatheendra <jatheendra at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
> Im trying to add some downgradability magic into pacman .Being quite
> new to pacman code, i need your help  to identify the possible
> pitfalls of my approach before trying something.
>
> What i plan to do is..
>
> In libalpm/remove.c  unlink_file()  [ I guess remove.c is the only
> place where we are removing files ]
>
> replace all unlink(), rename() etc with  copyandunlink , copyandrename
> etc which will copy the file first into an archive file
> package-backup.tgs in cache,then do unlink or rename. Then finally
> include  all the necessary .INSTALL ,PKGINFO ,.CHANGELOG etc and clean
> up.
>
> So even if i do a -Scc i will have a backup of what was installed on
> my system and can roll back to the previous state.

I, for one, like this idea. Not that I'd personally use it too often,
but the concept seems useful. It gives us coverage for all the "give
us a backup kernel!" ideas.