[gentoo-user] How to solve file collision as a package maintainer

[gentoo-user] How to solve file collision as a package maintainer

[YUE Daian]

Hi folks,

As a proxy maintainer of dev-lisp/roswell, I got this bug:

https://bugs.gentoo.org/691754

It seems that some files (e.g. /usr/bin/ros) are installed by both
dev-lisp/roswell and net-libs/librouteros.

I believe this should not be the only scenario that two packages have
file conflicts.

Could anyone please give me any clues about how to solve this kind of
problem?

Many thanks!

Re: [gentoo-user] How to solve file collision as a package maintainer

[Michael Orlitzky]

On 8/8/19 11:05 PM, YUE Daian wrote:
> 
> It seems that some files (e.g. /usr/bin/ros) are installed by both
> dev-lisp/roswell and net-libs/librouteros.
> 
> ...
> 
> Could anyone please give me any clues about how to solve this kind of
> problem?

The best solution is if you can convince one of the upstream projects to
change the name of that file. For example, to /usr/bin/roswell or
/usr/bin/routeros. All you can do is explain the reality: some other
package already creates that file, and if they keep the names as they
are, users can't install both of them at the same time.

If both projects refuse to rename the file, then you have two options.
You can rename one of the files in Gentoo, or you can add a blocker
dependency to ensure that both packages can't be installed at the same time.

Re: [gentoo-user] How to solve file collision as a package maintainer

[YUE Daian]

On 2019-08-09 06:54, Michael Orlitzky <mjo@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 8/8/19 11:05 PM, YUE Daian wrote:
>> 
>> It seems that some files (e.g. /usr/bin/ros) are installed by both
>> dev-lisp/roswell and net-libs/librouteros.
>> 
>> ...
>> 
>> Could anyone please give me any clues about how to solve this kind of
>> problem?
>
> The best solution is if you can convince one of the upstream projects to
> change the name of that file. For example, to /usr/bin/roswell or
> /usr/bin/routeros. All you can do is explain the reality: some other
> package already creates that file, and if they keep the names as they
> are, users can't install both of them at the same time.
>
> If both projects refuse to rename the file, then you have two options.
> You can rename one of the files in Gentoo, or you can add a blocker
> dependency to ensure that both packages can't be installed at the same time.

To be honest, it would be "unfair" to force one of the two packages to
change its name. I will talk with them and see.

Thank you so much!