[Debichem-devel] Bug#1102731: nwchem-mpich and nwchem-openmpi have an undeclared file conflict on /usr/bin/nwchem

[Helmut Grohne]

Control: tags -1 - moreinfo

On Sat, Apr 12, 2025 at 06:28:55PM +0200, Drew Parsons wrote:
> Hi Helmut, can you give more information on where you find the file
> conflict?

Please Cc bug submitters if you want them to reply. I noticed your mail 
by chance.

I think you answered your own question.

> /usr/bin/nwchem is a symlink to the build for the default MPI for the
> given architecture.
> 
> On 64-bit systems openmpi is default, so /usr/bin/nwchem is provided
> by the nwchem-openmpi package and not provided by the nwchem-mpich
> package.
> 
> Have you found a case where nwchem-mpich also provides /usr/bin/nwchem ?
> (apart from the 32-bit arches, for which nwchem-openmpi should not be
> providing /usr/bin/nwchem)

What you are describing here is a cross-architecture file conflict. 
Attempting to unpack nwchem-openmpi:64bit and nwchem-mpich:32bit is not 
prevent by packaging metadata and causes the described unpack error.

> /usr/bin/nwchem is not actually provided by both nwchem-openmpi and
> nwchem-mpich on a normal installation, so downgrading severity.

They are, as soon as you enable multiarch.

I agree that my report template is lacking in this regard as it did not 
clearly spell out the need to combine different architectures. It is 
rare for a conflict to be specific to particular architecture 
combinations. I shall look into improving future reports.

Helmut