Different versions of a package in the same profile?

Different versions of a package in the same profile?

[Ludovic Courtès]

Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> skribis:

> On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 03:31:15PM +0300, Alex Kost wrote:
>> I think the latter is a bug.  IMHO it shouldn't be possible to install
>> several packages with the same name in one profile.
>
> Well, having python 2 and 3 is reasonable, and from what I saw in their
> naming scheme, it is entirely possible (the python binary being renamed
> to python 3). Qt 4 and 5 are, I think, another case. How about GTK+ 2 and 3?

Actually, Qt 4 and 5 use non-versioned file names under bin/.

Technically it would be easy to allow the installation of different
versions of a package in the same profile, but I wonder about the
implications.

For instance, ‘-u foo’ would upgrade all the installed versions of
‘foo’, so you would end up with exactly the same version twice.

Ludo’.

Re: Different versions of a package in the same profile?

[Andreas Enge]

On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 12:07:14AM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> Technically it would be easy to allow the installation of different
> versions of a package in the same profile, but I wonder about the
> implications.
> 
> For instance, ‘-u foo’ would upgrade all the installed versions of
> ‘foo’, so you would end up with exactly the same version twice.

Good catch (or rather "bad feature"?).

So should we indeed rename version 2 of the python package to python2, to
allow easy installation together with python version 3?

We could do the same for Qt, but if anyway versions 4 and 5 are not
installable together, there does not seem to be a need.

How about guile?

In any case, the outcome of installation should not depend on whether we
do them in one or in several commands.

Another idea: How about letting "guix package -u foo" upgrade only the
package with name foo and the latest version if there are several with the
same name?

Andreas

Re: Different versions of a package in the same profile?

[Ludovic Courtès]

Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> skribis:

> On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 12:07:14AM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> Technically it would be easy to allow the installation of different
>> versions of a package in the same profile, but I wonder about the
>> implications.
>> 
>> For instance, ‘-u foo’ would upgrade all the installed versions of
>> ‘foo’, so you would end up with exactly the same version twice.
>
> Good catch (or rather "bad feature"?).
>
> So should we indeed rename version 2 of the python package to python2, to
> allow easy installation together with python version 3?
>
> We could do the same for Qt, but if anyway versions 4 and 5 are not
> installable together, there does not seem to be a need.

I don’t think so.  In this thread, I rather wanted to discuss the
implications of allowing same-named packages to be installed in the same
profile, should we decide to go that route.

> In any case, the outcome of installation should not depend on whether we
> do them in one or in several commands.

Agreed.

> Another idea: How about letting "guix package -u foo" upgrade only the
> package with name foo and the latest version if there are several with the
> same name?

That’s a possibility, yes.

But I wonder if there are other issues beyond -u.

Ludo’.

Re: Different versions of a package in the same profile?

[Andreas Enge]

On Sun, Nov 02, 2014 at 06:22:28PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> I don’t think so.  In this thread, I rather wanted to discuss the
> implications of allowing same-named packages to be installed in the same
> profile, should we decide to go that route.
> 
> > Another idea: How about letting "guix package -u foo" upgrade only the
> > package with name foo and the latest version if there are several with the
> > same name?
> That’s a possibility, yes.
> But I wonder if there are other issues beyond -u.

Good question, I do not know. But if we allow several packages with the same
name in a profile, I do not see another possibility for "guix package -u"
than my suggestion.

There is also the question of conflicts with identical file names. They are
already there now, but their probability should be higher with identical
package names. Maybe we need to rethink the handling of conflicts also.

Andreas

Re: Different versions of a package in the same profile?

[Federico Beffa]

Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> writes:

> On Sun, Nov 02, 2014 at 06:22:28PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> There is also the question of conflicts with identical file names. They are
> already there now, but their probability should be higher with identical
> package names. Maybe we need to rethink the handling of conflicts also.

In the past I did use the packaging system called SEPP

http://oss.oetiker.ch/op-sepp/

It allow installing several versions of a program on a single system.
The way they use to avoid naming conflicts it to systematically add a
suffix to binary names, with the suffix corresponding to the version of
the package.  They even went one step further and they added a suffix
with the initials of the administrator who packaged the application.

Each program was available with several names. For program foo:
- foo
- foo-1.2.3
- foo-1.2.3-fb
Obviously if more foo versions were installed, only one would be
referred to by foo.  The others were available with versioned names.

As a user, the system did work very well.

To handle updating, specifying foo should update the version owning
the name foo.  To update another version one would give the versioned
name "foo-1.2.3".

Regards,
Fede

Re: Different versions of a package in the same profile?

[Ludovic Courtès]

Federico Beffa <beffa@ieee.org> skribis:

> Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> writes:
>
>> On Sun, Nov 02, 2014 at 06:22:28PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> There is also the question of conflicts with identical file names. They are
>> already there now, but their probability should be higher with identical
>> package names. Maybe we need to rethink the handling of conflicts also.
>
> In the past I did use the packaging system called SEPP
>
> http://oss.oetiker.ch/op-sepp/

Interesting.

> It allow installing several versions of a program on a single system.
> The way they use to avoid naming conflicts it to systematically add a
> suffix to binary names, with the suffix corresponding to the version of
> the package.  They even went one step further and they added a suffix
> with the initials of the administrator who packaged the application.
>
> Each program was available with several names. For program foo:
> - foo
> - foo-1.2.3
> - foo-1.2.3-fb
> Obviously if more foo versions were installed, only one would be
> referred to by foo.  The others were available with versioned names.
>
> As a user, the system did work very well.
>
> To handle updating, specifying foo should update the version owning
> the name foo.

OK, this is a strategy similar to what Andreas was suggesting.

> To update another version one would give the versioned name
> "foo-1.2.3".

I see.

Ludo’.