Eopkg idea: warn when updates available

MatthewScholefield

Often I've ran into incompatibilities when installing new packages without upgrading my system first (most recently, this problem). What about having a little message before or after installing new packages if the index hasn't been updated in a week or two? Or something like:
If index hasn't been updated in a week:

Update index and check if updates available
If updates available: print('Note: Updates available. Install with sudo eopkg up')

CorvusRuber

MatthewScholefield
From command line ?
Why not an alias alias install='sudo eopkg up && sudo eopkg it' ?

logtom

Yeah that's really an issue if you come from non rolling release distros. I think your suggested "Note" is fine. Show it when installing packages with an additional need for confirmation. Like "Do you still want to proceed (y/N)".

Maybe even add a small info why that would be a good idea. Like "On rolling release distros you should always update first because you might get a newer version of a packages than your other packages are compatible with."

algent

CorvusRuber better it because installwill have problems with snap install, ninja install , ecc.

logtom

CorvusRuber
Hm, that would be problematic if a user want's to hold back specific packages. I for example always update with
sudo eopkg up --exclude cups-filters because I don't want to update this package for now.

MatthewScholefield

CorvusRuber I mean, for the general user, changing eopkg install to include an update adds quite an overhead. Even just for myself, I'm not a fan of slowing everything down for every package install when only 1 out of 20 times it actually could need to update.

logtom In your specific case you'd probably just opt to say no to the suggested upgrade and then it wouldn't bother you again for another week (since the index would have been updated). But, as a general solution, I think it'd be nice to have something like sudo eopkg pin-version cups-filters that would save in some ~/.config/eopkg/pinned.yml file a list of pinned packages with the dates they were pinned. When an upgrade would run it could automatically exclude pinned packages. Then, a few weeks later when a new cups version comes out, it could ask you again if you'd like to unpin the package when running sudo eopkg up.

CorvusRuber

algent
Of course.
Since my alias are in italian (aggiorna, installa, rimuovi and so on.....) it never occured to me that a simple "install" could be a bit too much.....broad 😅

dbarron

logtom However as stated many many times, this is the root of all evil (not fully upgrading).

CorvusRuber

logtom Hm, that would be problematic if a user want's to hold back specific packages. I for example always update with
sudo eopkg up --exclude cups-filters because I don't want to update this package for now.

And it's simply wrong, as dbarron said. Full update is your only update.

logtom

dbarron
CorvusRuber
Haha, there will always be regressions on packages. With the current cups-filters package my printer doesn't print so what should I do instead? This is my production/work machine so downtime is an issue.

dbarron

Have you filed a ticket with the CUPS folks?

logtom

dbarron Sure.

DataDrake

MatthewScholefield No. So much no.

Always update. You can't possibly know that those updates aren't required because of binary dependencies. system.base should never be ignored because you are almost guaranteed to break something. The rest of the things being updated during an install are dependencies of that new thing you are installing and not updating is very likely to breaks something.

I'm strongly against eopkg or sol allowing you to continuously hold back updates. People will abuse the hell out of that, even if it could help a select few. In this case we need to focus on resolving any and all issues preventing updates, even if that means rolling all of Solus back to an older version. I did it with Nvidia and the Kernel this week and I'll do it again. Ignoring the problem is NEVER an answer.

CorvusRuber

MatthewScholefield I mean, for the general user, changing eopkg install to include an update adds quite an overhead.

Exactly 2 (two) seconds of overhead, ie the time needed for eopkg to check if there are updates and there aren't.
If it takes more, it's because you had to update anyway (and update everything, always, as DataDrake, the Technical Lead of the project, kindly pointed out)

MatthewScholefield

Ok, well regardless, I think it looks like everyone is in wild agreement that this would be a positive addition. I suggested against just adding an unconditional update because usually the further behavior strays from the previous behavior, the more backlash there is in open source projects. However, regardless of how it's implemented, I'd love to see it eventually ship one day.

DataDrake

MatthewScholefield I don't get what you are suggesting we are in "wild agreement" needs to be added. The only thing that's broken is that eopkg doesn't update the Index when installing a new package. The partial update mechanism that it uses during installation could use some tweaking, but it rarely causes issues. What does cause issues is people holding back specific packages and not telling us why.