FS#23541 - [pacman] -Syu should also downgrade to the latest versions in the repos

Attached to Project: Pacman
Opened by Heiko Baums (cyberpatrol) - Thursday, 31 March 2011, 18:27 GMT
Last edited by Rémy Oudompheng (remyoudompheng) - Tuesday, 24 May 2011, 06:39 GMT
Task Type Feature Request
Category Documentation
Status Closed
Assigned To No-one
Architecture All
Severity Medium
Priority Normal
Reported Version 3.5.1
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 0
Private No

Details

Description:
pacman -Syu should not only update to the latest versions in the repositories, but also downgrade instead of just printing a warning that the installed package version is newer than the version in the repository.

This way it would be easily possible to temporarily test new package versions in [testing] in case of an existing bug and then downgrade to the stable repositories [core] and [extra] again without losing the dependency information by installing up- or downgraded dependencies explicitly with pacman -S.

This feature should at least be made optional so that the users can decide which behaviour they prefer.
This task depends upon

Closed by  Rémy Oudompheng (remyoudompheng)
Tuesday, 24 May 2011, 06:39 GMT
Reason for closing:  None
Additional comments about closing:  Nothing to do.
Comment by Ionut Biru (wonder) - Thursday, 31 March 2011, 18:30 GMT
is already supported, check out pacman -Sh

-u, --sysupgrade upgrade installed packages (-uu allows downgrade)
Comment by Heiko Baums (cyberpatrol) - Thursday, 31 March 2011, 19:01 GMT
Thanks for the info. Should be added to the manpage, too.
Comment by Karol Błażewicz (karol) - Thursday, 31 March 2011, 19:04 GMT
This already is in the manpage:

-u, --sysupgrade
Upgrades all packages that are out of date. Each currently-installed package will be examined and
upgraded if a newer package exists. A report of all packages to upgrade will be presented and the
operation will not proceed without user confirmation. Dependencies are automatically resolved at this
level and will be installed/upgraded if necessary. **Pass this option twice to enable package downgrade**; in
this case pacman will select sync packages whose version does not match with the local version. This can
be useful when the user switches from a testing repo to a stable one. Additional targets can also be
specified manually, so that -Su foo will do a system upgrade and install/upgrade the foo package in the
same operation.

It uses basically the same language for -Syy option.
** - emphasis mine.
Comment by Heiko Baums (cyberpatrol) - Thursday, 31 March 2011, 19:20 GMT
I've read the manpage before, but missed this. So it should be made clearer like it is done in pacman -Sh (-uu allows downgrade) or in the manpage about -Sy (Passing two --refresh or -y flags ...) instead of just mentioning the "option" in a clause in the middle of a long continuous text without any paragraphs which is mainly about the main function upgrade.
Comment by Karol Błażewicz (karol) - Thursday, 31 March 2011, 19:26 GMT
Maybe you should change the bug report's title to 'fix the -u part of pacman manpage'. It deals with 3 things in one paragraph:
* regular upgrades: 'pacman -Su',
* downgrades: 'pacman -Suu',
* updating and installing a new package: 'pacman -Su foo'.

Loading...