[Nix-dev] python-x.y.z-wrapper vs python-x.y.z-full

[Florian Friesdorf]

On Sat, 15 Oct 2011 17:51:11 +0200, Peter Simons <simons at cryp.to> wrote:
> Hi Florian,
> 
>  > But there are plenty of "-wrapper"s, but only ghc and python use it
>  > as a suffix _after_ the version. This results in python-2.7.1 being
>  > "upgraded" to python-2.7.1-wrapper by 'nix-env -u \*'.
> 
> apparently, you consider that a problem? Why is that? 

'nix-env -i python' installs python-2.7.1-wrapper.
'nix-env -u' in that sense works as expected, keeping wrapper.

2.7.1 is considered to be smaller than 2.7.1-wrapper; installing and
keeping 2.7.1 via nix-env is not possible. As the -wrapper versions are
the full python versions, which mostly everybody would want to install,
that's ok.

However, having installed 'nix-dev -iA nixpkgs_sys.python', an upgrade
will lead to nixpkgs_sys.pythonFull, which i think is confusing. I would
expect an upgrade to change something installed to the newest version
available, not to the newest version + additional libraries.

Looking at the various packages somehow named wrapper, I lack a
definition of the user experience of 'nix-dev -i'.

- there are some eg firefox, using wrapper in the attr-path and others
  like gcc using it in the attr-name.
- Do we want users to be aware, that they are installing a wrapper or is
  e.g. gcc-wrapper the thing that behaves like gcc on other systems and
  should be named just gcc?
- Is the attribute name used anywhere else than for 'nix-dev -i'?

regards
florian
-- 
Florian Friesdorf <flo at chaoflow.net>
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