Packaging Questions

[James Frazer]

> If package(s) fail, pkgmanager won't upgrade packages that depend on the
> failed package(s). Depending on how major an upgrade it is, this might
> mean some software is broken until the problem is fixed, or it might mean
> things continue working, with slight version discrepancies in the
> dependency tree.


Hmmmm.  When this happens, and a big (meta)package cannot be upgraded
(gnome) due to a dependency failure, what state does this leave the 
system in? Are the new packages already half installed?  Or does it 
wait for all packages to be built before upgrading?

Can pkgmanager handle binary upgrades?

Basically what I'm worried about is ending up with a system that 
has half the dependencies upgraded -- and being forced to downgrade 
them all by hand to get things working again.