Bug 36551 - 3.4beta2 can neither be installed as update to 3.3.2 nor alongside 3.3.2 because of packaging conflicts
Summary: 3.4beta2 can neither be installed as update to 3.3.2 nor alongside 3.3.2 beca...
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Installation (show other bugs)
Version: 3.4.0 Beta2
Hardware: All Linux (All)
: highest blocker
Assignee: Petr Mladek
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Keywords:
: 36457 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks: mab3.4
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Reported: 2011-04-24 14:38 UTC by Christian Lohmaier
Modified: 2011-05-06 11:07 UTC (History)
6 users (show)

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Description Christian Lohmaier 2011-04-24 14:38:32 UTC 
It's not possible (without dirty tricks) to update a 3.3.2 installation of LibreOffice to the 3.4.0beta2, because of unfortunate naming of packages.

There are versioned package names, that install files to non-versioned directories.

both core as well as extension packages are affected. For example

/opt/libreoffice/program/kdefilepicker is in package 

"libreoffice3.3-core01" and
"libreoffice3.4-core01"

As both have a different name, the libreoffice3.4-core01 is not considered an update of libreoffice3.3-core01, thus rpm as well as dpkg try to install the 3.4-0beta2 one alongside of the 3.3.2 one, and of course fails because both packages include the same files (the same filepaths)

It's a bad idea to have versioned package names when they use a non-versioned directory. The only way to do a clean update in this case is to add tons of "Obsoletes" statements in all affected packages.

#########################################################
Two ways to solve this dilemma

1) Allow packages to installed along each other (except the desktop-integration one - you have to decide which version should be in your DE's menu, what should be default for the corresponding mime-types)

In this case, make the installation directory versioned as well. /opt/libreoffice3.4/..... for example

2) Have 3.4.0 be an update to previous version(s)

In this case remove the version from the package names, and add a corresponding Obsoletes: <packagename>3.3 to the packages
(or put a hard break to it without adding Obsoletes-directive and make manual uninstallation of previous versions mandatory for the users by putting it in big letter to the release notes)

(note that neither of the above is a replacement for special development versions that can always be inside alongside release(candidate) versions like bug #36437 requests)
Comment 1 Christian Lohmaier 2011-04-24 14:53:57 UTC 
*** Bug 36457 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 2 NoOp 2011-04-24 19:00:04 UTC 
This is IMO a duplicate of 
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31747
[Bug 31747 - broken debian files ]
Comment 3 Christian Lohmaier 2011-04-25 00:58:50 UTC 
No, 31747 is no duplicate. Only the very last comment is the same problem, but the rest of the problem is about a conflict of en-US vs. en-us. bug #31747 is a mutating issue (turning from problem A in completely different problem B). Dealing with those issues is a pain in the a… and in most cases it's far easier to write a new bug with a clean, focused description, instead of having to read through pages of comments)

This issue: Version part of package name, but files in non-versioned directories
Other issue: Something about en-US in the package name, but an en-us in the package's dependencies (or the other way round - no idea whether this still applies, I don't use deb).
Comment 4 Petr Mladek 2011-05-04 06:39:57 UTC 
Steering committee has decided to allow to install LO-3.3 and LO-3.4 in parallel, see http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-April/011185.html

I am going to fix the linux part:

   * rename libreoffice3 packages to libreoffice3.4
   * change the default prefix from /opt/libreoffice to /opt/libreoffice3.4
   * keep user configuration in ~/.libreoffice/3

Fridrich, Tor, Thorsten, could you please do something similar on Windows and MAC for LO-3.4.0-rc1 release?
Comment 5 Don't use this account, use tml@iki.fi 2011-05-04 06:50:46 UTC 
So when the steering committee decided to "allow" a parallel installation, did they mean that this should be *optional*? I.e. that it should be possible for the user to *choose* whether to install 3.4 in parallel with an earlier LO installation, or whether to let it overwrite/override it? That will be quite hard to implement on Windows at least, without actually providing two separate sets of installers for two completely separate products, one which is a new version of the LibreOffice product, one which is a new LibreOffice3.4 product.
Comment 6 Petr Mladek 2011-05-06 11:07:40 UTC 
(In reply to comment #4)
> I am going to fix the linux part:
> 
>    * rename libreoffice3 packages to libreoffice3.4
>    * change the default prefix from /opt/libreoffice to /opt/libreoffice3.4

Done

Note that even the desktop integration packages can be installed installed in parallel. Everything is versioned, including desktop menu entries and the libreoffice3.4 wrapper.

There was a long discussion and it is not easy to do this for Windows. Though, we decided to produce non-conflicting daily builds using tinderboxes for Windows (so called dev builds).

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