Re: Aptitude best to ignore a dependency

[Kevin Chadwick <ma1l1ists@yahoo.co.uk>]

> your question is better suited for one of the various support
> channels. Including but not limited to the
> debian-user@lists.debian.org mailinglists, which are even available
> in different languages.

> Some quick answers anyway:

Thanks 

I changed it from the user list at the last minute as I thought the
question about security updates was pertinent to debian devs.

> > Also shouldn't security updates for existing packages update in any
> > case. What if something broke and the user didn't notice (background
> > task)?  
> 
> APT goes from one consistent system state to another. If your system
> ever reaches an inconsistent state you will usually have bigger
> problems than a pending security update as your system might not even
> boot anymore.

Or it almost certainly will boot just fine. I don't see how replacing
insecure data with secure data on a hard drive is any kind of
reasonable argument for not applying updates especially if those updates
have nothing to do with the broken dependency. It is not like fsck
failed. It is just data on a disk at the end of the day. Dependencies
for getting that right aren't large.

> Needless to mention that a background task can't just
> break your system, the user has to take some form of action to do it
> (like kill dpkg/APT while running, power outage, …)
> So you really want to fix this situation and reach a consistent state,
> from there you can easily install pending updates again.

Steam runs just fine. I have no need for jockey or polkit (graphics
tuning at runtime) and actually don;t agree with pokit as a well
designed tool. My process list fits one page rather than pages now too
which has to be good for gaming.

I guess equiv or wasting my time filing a bug report is the answer then.
I guess you crank the version to make it permanent?

-- 
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'Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work
together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a
universal interface'

(Doug McIlroy)
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