Subject: Re: How to use Package Chooser in Setup.exe
From: Brian Dessent <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 17:16:56 -0800

Matthew Johnson wrote:

> When the radio button in the Package Chooser of
> Setup.exe selected is 'Cur' and 'View' is set to "up
> to date", what does 'keep' mean? Does it mean to keep
> it up to date, or does it mean to keep whatever is
> already installed on the system in question? And if
> the latter, how does that differ from 'install' or
> from 'reinstall'?

"Keep" means that the package is currently installed and no action will
be taken to it.  If there is a newer version of the package available it
will not be listed in the "up to date" view, it will be listed in the
"Partial" view with a new version in the "New" column.  Essentially the
Up-to-date/Partial views just filter the display between "stuff that is
already installed to the desired/latest version and will not be touched"
and "stuff that will be changed in some way" when you press the "Next >"
button.

The best way to think of the setup package list is in terms of the
"Current" and "New" columns.  (Don't confuse the "Current" column here,
which means 'state of currently installed on your local system' with
"Curr" version which means 'whatever the package maintainer has
designated as the current version'.  If a package gets updated then the
"Curr" version will be newer than what's listed in your "Current" column
becuase you haven't updated yet.  Kinda confusing terminology there. 
Perhaps setup might be changed to always use "stable" where it uses
"curr", and keep "Current" as the name of the current-local-state
column.)

These two columns tell you what setup is going to do with any given
package.  If "Current" has a version number and "New" contains Keep,
then the package will not be modified.  If "Current" is blank and "New"
contains a version, then it is a package that does not currently exist
on your system and is about to be installed, and so on.

"Reinstall" can be applied to any package to re-unpack the currently
installed version and re-run any postinstall scripts.

The "Install" option only applies in the Category view, and in that
sense it's a bit confusing because what it really means is "Set all
packages in this category to 'Curr', or whatever the radio selection is
at."  If all the packages in the category are aleady installed and at
the "curr" version then they will all remain at Keep in the New column. 
If some were not installed they will have a version in the "New" column,
and the others that were already up to date will continue to be "Keep".

I think the thing that is confusing you is that in setup you don't mark
individual packages as "always update this" or "never update this". 
When you run setup you use to radio buttons to apply your preferences to
all pacakges: "Keep" means keep everything the same as it is now, do
nothing.  "Prev" means downgrade every package to its previous version. 
"Curr" means keep every package upgraded to its latest non-test release,
and "Exp" means get the latest bleeding edge of everything.  These
choices are applied to all packages every time you use the radio button. 

When you run setup by default it comes up in the "Curr" selection which
means it will always try to set every package to the curr/stable
version.  There is no way to persistently tell setup that you want exp
for some packages and curr for the rest, for example.  If you put two
packages at exp (by cycling their "New" column to a version that is
newer) and the rest at curr, and then later run setup again it will
attempt to downgrade those two back to the "curr" version.  This is kind
of inconvenient, but for the vast majority of users the best choice is
running "curr" versions of every package, so the people that have a need
to combine exp and curr selections will usually know how to use setup to
accomplish it.

> And if I keep clicking on the 'keep' icon, I see a
> couple of version numbers pop up. Is the latest of
> them the version I already have, or the version that
> will be installed if I select 'install'? And how _do_
> I select 'install' if I have to keep clicking on the
> same icon to get 'install' to come back?

It depends on the package.  Most all packages have one older previous
version available, and some packages have a newer but experimental
version additionally available.  When you cycle an already-installed and
up-to-date package and see version numbers, then you are seeing the prev
and exp versions.  You can compare the version in the "New" column to
the version in the "Current" column to see which is which.  When you
cycle a not-yet-installed package the first version you get is "curr".

> Under "Choosing Packages", the above-mentioned website
> only says rather unhelpful things like, "To Uninstall,
> Reinstall or get the Source, click on Keep to toggle
> it". There is no mention of version numbers popping
> up!

Perhaps it should say "click on 'Keep' and continue clicking to cycle
the selection until the desired state is set."

Brian

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