tasksel problem

[Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>]

Gah, this is really nasty. Suppose you want to have a task package that
provides a mail server. This is hypothetically possible, I can think of
a couple of reasons like task-laptop might want to set you up with some
trivial mail server. 

So tasksel runs, and because it was passed -i, it goes and marks all
important packages for install with dpkg --set-selections. This includes
exim. It also marks your task for install, of course.

Then it goes and runs apt-get -f. Apt wakes up, looks around, notices two
conflicting mail servers are marked for install. Notices exim is Important
and is depended on by a load of other stuff. Pre-emptively decides not to
install the other mail server.

I've tried everything. I made the task package Important, even Essential.
I made it conflict with exim. I made it provide exim. No matter what I
do, apt always decides exim is more important and installs it.

Of course the fix is echo "exim deinstall" |dpkg --set-selections, but a
task package can't make that happen.

Any thoughts, besides don't pass -i to tasksel?

-- 
see shy jo