Arch Linux

#1 sounds pretty complicated if you ask me, I don't see how -U /var/cache/pacman/pkg/foo-1XYZ.pkg.tar.gz is not "nice".

#2 sounds easier, and I do think I like it.

Regarding both of these, however, downgrading is an edge case, it is not common behavior. If it _is_ common behavior, we need to look at WHY this is so. We do not want users using old packages, and making it easier to do so gives them that ability (especially newbies).

It seems like the whole xdelta thing could speak to this issue (assuming that you can use xdeltas in reverse). Although I'm not sure how the pre_install(), post_install(), etc., would be handled..

I don't like #1 either.
#2 sounds nicer, and it's very useful when switching off from testing indeed (but why unstable?), even if it doesn't have much use outside that particular case. And I don't think users should enable/disable testing all the time.

This may be a bit off here, but I have a more complicated wish:
Tuned #2:
Earlier ftp.estpak.ee hosted older versions of packages (yes, sometimes packages in extra/current were unusuable and thus I had to downgrade); I found this very useful, so I downloaded and installed (-U) older packages by hand from there.
So it would be nice if multiple versions of packages would be allowed in sync repos [to not to confuse dependency resolving and such things the older packages could be placed in a separate place, such as in the .old subdirectory of the repo; this would be used in case of explicit 'pacman -S package-2.0-1' request only]
This may be a theoretical FR because our mirrors probably syncs their dbs from ftp.al.org not _generate_ them (but this can be changed).

Referring to the testing/extra question: you can specify the repo by '-S extra/foo', pacman should downgrade after confirmation.

Or if you meant for adding a new switch (the opposite of -u) to -S as a downgrade indicator, such as -d (I know, that this is used now): that is easy to implement -- we already detect downgrades in sync repos and give a warning.

PS: With the notation above -Sud could install all version-not-matching packages.

hey i miss this feature too! i had the same problem with that crappy apt-get in Debian...

Aaron Griffin (phrakture): sorry for doublepost... there could be some bug in newer version and for example: latest versions of sane fails with my old scanner, but the older works great...

There is now -Suu in pacman which implements #2. Can this bug be closed or are there plans to think about #1 again?