Re: [Gnumed-devel] Re: windows installer

[David Grant]

James Busser wrote:

> On Feb 21, 2004, at 9:06 AM, David Grant wrote:
>
> > 2 weeks ago I upgraded to python-2.3 from python-2.2.  Gentoo has a nice
> > script called update-python-modules or something.  I ran that and it
> > re-"emerged" all my python software so that they get installed to the
> > python-2.3 directory and uninstalled from the python-2.2 directory.
> > This was about 30 packages.  It was pretty painless.  Using apt-get
> > would probably be even faster, but you'd have to type in every package.
>
>
> Does this need to re-install or re-"emerge" python packages apply only 
> to Windows, or are some or all other OS/distributions similarly 
> affected? If so, do we identify whether a corresponding script exists 
> to assist the other similarly affected OS/distributions and, where 
> there is none, do we propose to python maintainers that they include 
> one, or is it worth our contributing them?

All distributions should be equally affected.  Every major 
distribution/OS should have its own uninstallation or re-installation 
method.  It is up to the distribution/OS to handle this.  It should 
basically uninstall whatever was installed, but it shouldn't touch and 
configuration files, namely those in /etc/, for example.  The script I 
was referring to in Gentoo really just calls "emerge unmerge 
<package-name1> <package-name2>, etc..."  In Redhat, I can't remember 
how to do this.  In apt-get, it is "apt-get remove <package-name>", then 
"apt-get install <package-name>".  I think there is a reinstallation 
method for apt-get as well but I can't remember what that is.  In Mac OS 
X, there must be a way.  If you are using fink, then you can just use 
apt-get I think.  A Windows installer shouldn't be able to reverse 
whatever it did, for purposes of uninstallation.

David