apt vs urpmi

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Wed, 2006-05-03 at 23:41 +0300, Panu Matilainen wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-05-03 at 18:59 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> > On Wed, 2006-05-03 at 12:49 -0400, Gary Greene wrote:
> > > > * Panu Matilainen [2006-05-03 02:25:09 -0700]: 
> > 
> > > Yes, apt-rpm DOES handle these, and quite well as PhoeNUX OS uses the
> > > same version of RPM that existed in MDK 2005LE and we've noted only
> > > good things in apt's dep tracking for RPMs.
> > metadata repos which simultaneously contain both src.rpms and binary
> > rpms (mixed repos) aren't even close to being functional.
> > 
> > They work most of the time, but this is more or less random luck,
> > AFAICT.
> 
> Retrieving source packages from mixed repositories is indeed known to be
> completely busted but are you seeing issues with binary rpm's from mixed
> repositories?
Let me put it this way: 

ATM, what I wrote above is a suspicion, based on what I am seeing when
debugging operations on src.rpms (apt-get source, apt-cache showpkg,
apt-cache showsrc etc.).

There, most apt internal operations are performed on package names
(Note: names not package file names), which causes quite some amount of
confusion when a repo contains both src.rpms, and different types of
differently arch'ed packages.

Beside this, there are (src-) list handling bugs showing effect when a
repo is sparsely populated (repos with 0, 1 or 2 entries).

I haven't investigated retrieval of binaries from mixed repos, so far.

>  If so that's a severe bug somewhere, src.rpm packages from
> repomd have architecture "src" which apt should just skip as unusable.

OK, I missed this. If what I suspect applies, failures should be
producible with
 
* a "repomd"-repo containing only one src.rpm and no binary rpm. (This
case hits several bugs at once with "apt-get source" on repomd-src's)

* a repomd-repo containing only src.rpm and one corresponding binary
rpm, with its metadata files containing the binary rpm before the
src.rpm (This case occasionally hits another bug in "apt-get source").

Ralf