Re: [tlug] Handling Incompatible Dependencies (was Re: Ubuntu Trusty (14.04) issues)

[Kalin KOZHUHAROV <me.kalin@example.com>]

On Wed, May 7, 2014 at 11:57 AM,  <jep200404@example.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 7 May 2014 01:31:37 +0800, Raymond Wan <rwan.kyoto@example.com> wrote:
>
>> I wonder if there is any Linux distribution that allows you to keep
>> your system at one version but upgrade software like your web browser
>> in an isolated way such that all of its dependencies are put somewhere
>> so as not to disturb the rest of the system[.]
>
Not really.

Each subsystem has to deal on its own (python as suggested, perl, java, etc.).
I use Gentoo and there is a system-level solution that involves other
subsystems kind of magically, that is called SLOTs.
You can have several versions of the same library and theoretically
link to what you want.

Example:
# eix -e libpng
[U] media-libs/libpng
     Available versions:
     (1.2)  1.2.51
     (1.5)  1.5.18
     (0)    1.6.8(0/16) 1.6.10(0/16)
       {apng neon static-libs ABI_MIPS="n32 n64 o32" ABI_X86="32 64 x32"}
     Installed versions:  1.2.50(1.2)(2012-11-28 11:59)
1.6.7(0/16)(2013-12-13 00:01)(apng -neon -static-libs ABI_MIPS="-n32
-n64 -o32" ABI_X86="64 -32 -x32")
     Homepage:            http://www.libpng.org/
     Description:         Portable Network Graphics library

I have 1.2.50 and 1.6.7 installed (and those are scheduled to upgrade
to 1.2.51 and 1.6.10).
Different packages have version dependencies like
"=media-libs/libpng:1.2" or "=media-libs/libpng-1.2*" etc.

Upgrading a library does not break stuff, since the old library is
preserved until the package that is using it is recompiled.
Example:
 *  - /usr/lib64/libavformat.so.53.32.100
 *      used by
/opt/oracle-jdk-bin-1.7.0.55/jre/lib/amd64/fxavcodecplugin-53.so
(dev-java/oracle-jdk-bin-1.7.0.55)
 *      used by /usr/lib64/gegl-0.2/ff-load.so (media-libs/gegl-0.2.0-r1)
 *      used by /usr/lib64/gstreamer-0.10/libgstffmpeg.so
(media-plugins/gst-plugins-ffmpeg-0.10.13-r2)
 *      used by 3 other files

Kalin.