[indiana-discuss] new BE for just two upgrades

[Shawn Walker]

dick hoogendijk wrote:
> In run OpenSolaris 2009.06 and there are two upgrades in the release
> repo. SunStudio and (as I see just now) also one for virtualbox.
> 
> I think it is not right to create a NEW BE just for these updates.
> That is overkill imho.
> 
> Can somebody explain why it's chosen to be handled like this?
> 
> Mind you: new BEs are a good thing, but just for a few upgrades of some
> packages?

As others pointed out, packages with kernel upgrades are a good reason 
to use an alternate boot enivronment.

However, the main reason at the moment is because you use image-update 
(or "Update All" in the GUI tools).

At the moment, image-update doesn't know enough about the packages being 
upgraded to determine whether a new boot environment is needed or not. 
In the near future, we hope to have more metadata in packages that will 
enable the packaging system to make smart decisions about whether a boot 
environment is needed.

Cheers,
-- 
Shawn Walker