[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] upgrading base packages from third party repositories

[From: Marius Vollmer]

"ext Jussi Kukkonen" <jhkukkon at cc.hut.fi> writes:

> I finally managed to get ogg playback on my device, thanks to
> N770-Freak and the "Getting started with multimedia"-document at
> maemo.org. Now, I could upload the packages I put together out there
> (e.g. on Garage), but I'm wondering how upgrading Nokia-installed
> packages should be done.

It shouldn't be done at all. :-) You should not put a package into
extras that is already available from somewhere else.  We don't have
the means to enforce this, I think, but please don't do it anyway.

If you do it, it would be a 'non-maintainer-upload', which is
sometimes the right thing to do, but doing it to add experimental
features would be considered rude.

You need to talk to the maintainer of the package that you want
changed and work something out.

> So the question:
> If I upload a gstreamer package with version number larger than the
> Nokia-provided-gstreamer has into the extras repository, the users of
> that repo would then install it on the next upgrade even if they hadn't
> installed a package that requires the new version of gstreamer, right?

Right, but only when they do an "upgrade".  The Application Manager
only does it in red-pill mode when you update the "magic:sys" package.

> That does not sound like something I'd like -- Should I use another
> package name and a Conflicts-field?

You should use another package name, and avoid Conflicts if possible.
That is, try to put your additional stuff into a package that can be
installed along-side the existing packages.  I am not familiar at all
with the concrete problem you are trying to solve, so I can't say
whether that approach is feasible.  It is worth putting quite som
effort into it, however.