cannot install 32bit and 64bit devel packages in parallel

[Jeff Johnson]

A conflicting "noarch" file in per-arch *-devel pkgs
prevents both being installed.

[Denis Silakov (dsilakov)]

In case of Mandriva bug the issue is supposed to be resolved by proper packaging.
Probably rpm could also be smart in such cases and allow the same noarch file from different packages, but I wouldn't consider this as a high priority. It is also questionable if such smart behavior won't lead to confusion ...

[Jeff Johnson (n3npq)]

Yes, this is a non-bug if one assumes perfect packaging.

The underlying problem (and the reason for the tracker) is
related to the build process workflow.

The problem shows up repeatedly:
         File conflicts stopping an upgrade on end-user system.
and the obvious response of
         Don't do that: fix the package.
isn't satisfactory: the problems keep reoccurring.

The root cause(s) (imho) are process related:
         1) rpm is expected to perform distro QA tasks on end-user systems.
         2) there aren't any adequate tools for detecting file conflicts.
         3) administratively, "development" != "release engineering", these are usually
         different teams that need to cooperate in order to detect "file conflicts"

The "forward" goal *is* rpm related:
          Devise a better process flow in rpm build so that "file conflicts"
          are detected earlier, during build, in the usual packaging process.

Its also feasible to automate the file conflict resolution with either FIFI/LIFO
(or even rule based) resolution to choose a well-defined resolution while
installing.

[Denis Silakov (dsilakov)]

Agree, such kind of help from rpmbuild would be useful.