Apt repository interoperability (was: Bug#311188: Debian edu messed up my Ubuntu system.)

[Raphael Hertzog]

Hi,

On Fri, 25 Apr 2008, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> Because quite a few different distributions use APT and .deb repositories,
> and their packages aren't necessarily interchangeable, it would be useful if
> APT knew which distribution you were running and checked this against the
> Release file in the repository.  This would make it possible to display a
> warning or otherwise behave intelligently.
> 
> This idea has been around for a while.  There is real work associated with
> doing this, however, and it hasn't yet been a big enough priority for anyone
> with the necessary time and skills.

I'd like to note that the dpkg team has some plans that covers part of
this problematic. Guillem has written down some preliminary ideas here:
http://www.hadrons.org/~guillem/debian/docs/origin.proposal

The idea is to have "base-files" provide the name of the current
distributon. This distribution name would then be propagated to
the Origin: field in debs built in the system.

(I think the part about changelog handling needs more thought however)

Cheers,
-- 
Raphaël Hertzog

Le best-seller français mis à jour pour Debian Etch :
http://www.ouaza.com/livre/admin-debian/