Re: Dependencies of -dbg and -doc packages

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org>]

Stephen Leake wrote:
> Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> writes:
>> No; aptitude shows all packages, installed or not (in different
sub-trees
>> by default).
> 
> It didn't for me when I tried to repeat the process you gave.
> 
> Could you give more explicit instructions?

Uh, type "aptitude" by itself on a command line.  Below the menu bar, you
should see this:

http://algebraicthunk.net/~dburrows/projects/aptitude/doc/en/ch01s01s01.html

Below the "Not installed packages", you will see packages that are
available but, guess what, not installed :)

If that list is empty for you, try hitting 'u'; this will cause aptitude
to 'update' its list of available packages.

>>> The Synaptic search requires use of a rodent-like
>>> attachment :), gives some false positives, and leaves out
>>> libopentoken-dbg (I'm not clear why).
>>
>> That's why I think that ensuring that all Ada packages are linked with
>> one another in some sensible way would be a big help.
> 
> Only if Synaptic takes advantage of those links. It didn't use the
> Depends: links properly, and it doesn't say anything about using
> Recommends:.
> 
> Unless there is some other tool that people should use.

The other tool is aptitude.  Since Debian 4.0 "Etch", aptitude is
the official, recommended tool for both installation and upgrades; it
supersedes dselect.

If you navigate to gnat-4.3 and hit ENTER, you will see this:

http://algebraicthunk.net/~dburrows/projects/aptitude/doc/en/ch01s01s01.html

Towards the bottom of the screen, a line says:

--- Packages which depend on gnat-4.3

And you can expand it (with ENTER) to:

--\ Packages which depend on gnat-4.3
  --- Depends
  --- Recommends
  --- Suggests
  --- Conflicts
  --- Replaces

You can also hit '[' to expand it recursively to all levels.

On each package in each of these categories, you can type '+' to install
it, '-' to remove it, ENTER to display its detailed information, etc.

This is how I installed all Ada packages; the only problem is that I
sometimes had to do multiple cycles of ENTER, scroll down, '+' to get
all packages.  And I missed a few -dbg or -doc packages that are *not*
currently linked to gnat-4.3 in any way.

PS. I hear aptitide now has a GTK+ interface in addition to the ncurses
interface.  I've never used it.

[...]
> So having all ada-related packages Suggest gnat if they don't already
> directly Depend or Recommend it or some package name containing the
> string 'gnat' would cause synaptic to show them all in a single search.
> That works for me.

That's also a nice suggestion; the policy would need to forbid any version
in the Suggests so as not to cause problems while we (package maintainers)
upload upgrades to all Ada packages.

> Just be sure the policy includes the rationale that "this causes
> synaptic (and aptitude?) to display this package when searching for
> 'gnat dependencies'".

Yes.

> And we still need a FAQ to point out this way of using synaptic; it's
> not obvious, both because it doesn't involve searching for "ada", and it
> involves the mysterious "dependencies" search option.

How about an appendix in the Debian Policy for Ada?

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.