[Nix-dev] python-x.y.z-wrapper vs python-x.y.z-full

[Peter Simons]

Hi Florian,

 > 2.7.1 is considered to be smaller than 2.7.1-wrapper; installing and
 > keeping 2.7.1 via nix-env is not possible. As the -wrapper versions
 > are the full python versions, which mostly everybody would want to
 > install, that's ok.

yes, I completely agree. The way nix-env chooses updates is fine most of
the time, but it's bad in some case where one would like to keep a
variant that's considered "older".

 > However, having installed 'nix-dev -iA nixpkgs_sys.python', an upgrade
 > will lead to nixpkgs_sys.pythonFull, which i think is confusing.

I've found that buildEnv provides a decent solution to that problem:

  http://nixos.org/wiki/Howto_keep_multiple_packages_up_to_date_at_once


 > I would expect an upgrade to change something installed to the newest
 > version available, not to the newest version + additional libraries.

If a sufficiently large group in the community feels that way, then we
could rename python-2.7.1-wrapper to, say, full-python-2.7.1. That would
prevent those updates. Personally, I feel having that particular update
path is fine, though.

Take care,
Peter