Re: Essential virtual packages

[cjw44@flatline.org.uk (Colin Watson)]

Glenn McGrath <bug1@netconnect.com.au> wrote:
>I cant find any details on the virtual package kernel-image except its
>name, do virtual packages have priorities and can they be marked
>essential ?

Virtual packages are called that because they are just names that are
provided by other packages. The packages that provide them have
priorities and can be marked essential, sure. But, since there's no
entry in the Packages file for them, there's nowhere to mark the virtual
package itself essential.

The situation is slightly different with mixed virtual packages, where
you also have a real package by the same name; for instance, trn is a
real package and is also provided by strn. However, the control fields
of trn still don't apply to strn; the virtual package is a different
entity to the real package by the same name.

I'm sure I've explained this badly, because it's complicated. For the
full, accurate details, you should look in section 2.3.5 of the Debian
Policy Manual (package debian-policy) and section 8.4 of the Debian
Packaging Manual (package packaging-manual).

-- 
Colin Watson                                     [cjw44@flatline.org.uk]