From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041020 Epiphany/1.4.4 Description of problem: The GCC 2.96 compiler was needed on a colleague's machine due to tons of old code that would not compile on gcc 3.3 or 3.4. He couldn't get the compat-gcc-7.3-2.96.126 package found online to install, as it "conflicted" with compat-gcc-8-3.3.4.2. The conflict was entirely bogus - there was no real conflict at all between the two pieces of software. However, since both packages were named "compat-gcc", rpm invented its own little incompatibility. This was worked around using rpm using the --oldpackage flag. However, the colleague was not aware of that flag, and was considered ditching Fedora for an old version of Red Hat Linux until I butted in. This entire problem would not exist if the packaging was done slightly differently - there was no _real_ software conflict. I would like to see the compat-gcc packages be renamed in future releases to compat-gcc-<version> (i.e., compat-gcc-3.3) so that this kind of conflict can be avoided from now on. Obviously this can't retroactively help current releases, but it can improve things down the road. On a slightly related note, I'd say that all compat-foo* packages should explicitly note the version in their package name so that this sort of artificial software conflict doesn't happen with other packages in the distribution. As much as we may wish otherwise, developers sometimes need ancient libraries and tools, even with open source software (as in the case of my colleague). Another suggestion might be to just name all the GCC packages to gcc-<version> (drop the 'compat' bit), make the gcc package depend on the latest release, and use the alternatives system to select the compiler. Thank you! Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): compat-gcc-8-3.3.4.2 compat-gcc-7.3-2.96.126 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. install compat-gcc from FC3 (gcc 3.3) 2. try to install an older compat-gcc to get a completely different compiler, like gcc-2.96 Actual Results: Had to manually install the desired package with --oldpackage. RPM made it seem like the software was incompatible or a downgrade, when in fact we were installing a different and parallel-installable piece of software. Expected Results: The desired package, having absolutely no real install or runtime confliects, should have installed with no complaints and not requiring manual rpm hackery to install. Additional info: The package installed was found on rpmfind.net. It was the compat-gcc shipped by an earlier Red Hat release.
Hm, there is conflict between FC3 compat-libstdc++ package and 2.96-RH compat-libstdc++. Anyway, compat-* packages have been revamped for RHEL4 and will eventually be changed for FC4 as well (after updating from 3.2.3-RH based one to 3.3.4-RH based one).
Ah. Is there more information avilable on what exactly those compat-* revamps are? I'm running Rawhide and I see the exact same problematic packaging for compat-* stuff. I'd like to get a chance to point out any problems with those changes early on - I figure if you guys are going to fix things up, better make sure nothing gets overlooked and things get fixed up *right*. ^_^ Thanks.