From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Confused by y-or-n-p Date: Wed, 06 Jan 2021 18:08:36 +0200 Message-ID: <83v9ca120r.fsf@gnu.org> References: <834kkcr1eo.fsf@gnu.org> <87y2hhri3n.fsf@mail.linkov.net> <83pn2tkfg8.fsf@gnu.org> <871rf7ippu.fsf@mail.linkov.net> <83a6trg6mc.fsf@gnu.org> <87im8f951f.fsf@gnus.org> <83lfdacapo.fsf@gnu.org> <83wnwra15u.fsf@gnu.org> <83o8i23fht.fsf@gnu.org> <831rey2i82.fsf@gnu.org> <87a6tmm54c.fsf@gnu.org> Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="18561"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Tassilo Horn Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Wed Jan 06 17:09:17 2021 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1kxBN6-0004hh-To for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Wed, 06 Jan 2021 17:09:16 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:59746 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kxBN5-00027K-Uf for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Wed, 06 Jan 2021 11:09:15 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:47978) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kxBMW-0001Qe-BO for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 06 Jan 2021 11:08:40 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:35254) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kxBMW-00041l-4I for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 06 Jan 2021 11:08:40 -0500 Original-Received: from 84.94.185.95.cable.012.net.il ([84.94.185.95]:2953 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1kxBMU-0002R3-TJ; Wed, 06 Jan 2021 11:08:39 -0500 In-Reply-To: <87a6tmm54c.fsf@gnu.org> (message from Tassilo Horn on Wed, 06 Jan 2021 16:46:41 +0100) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:262612 Archived-At: > From: Tassilo Horn > Date: Wed, 06 Jan 2021 16:46:41 +0100 > > > Does installing from a binary distro (as opposed to from sources built > > locally) remove previous versions nowadays? > > Usually, yes. Sometimes there is a package foobar-8.1.0 and additional > foobar6-6.7.1, foobar7-7.9.12, i.e., installing foobar installs the > current version (8.1.0) but separate packages are provided for older > versions and you can have all of them installed in parallel, but that's > mostly done for libraries where some other package only works with > version 6 but not 7 or 8. Not sure we are on the same page. I meant the following situation: . I installed foobar, which brought me foobar-7.1.0, the latest version at that time . Time passes and I learn there's a newer version of foobar, 8.1.0. So I install foobar again, and that brings me foobar-8.1.0. But did installing foobar-8.1.0 remove the installation of foobar-7.1.0? With many packages, the program executables that come with the package have the same name 'foobar', so installing the new one would overwrite the old one. But building and installing Emacs installs 2 executables: 'emacs' and 'emacs-MM.NN'; installing a new version will overwrite 'emacs', but not the versioned 'emacs-MM.NN' binary, so it needs to be explicitly deleted to get rid of it. And then there are versioned subdirectories of /usr/share and /usr/libexec. Do distros forcibly remove those versioned files and directories when they install a new version? > And from a distro packager's point of view, the additional > user-convenience of enabling users to compare emacs version X against > the current version surely doesn't justify the added maintenance costs. In the case of Emacs, I see no additional costs if all they do is refrain from removing the files belonging to the previous versions. The costs are of the end-user. Thanks.