Bug#258690: base-config: fails to install mdetect if read-edid isn't there (!i386)

[Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>]

Package: base-config
Version: 2.35
Severity: normal

'apt-get install foo bar' only succeeds if foo and bar are both
available; if bar is missing, it doesn't install foo.

At the moment, read-edid only exists on i386.

The combination of these two facts means that
base-config/lib/menu/pkgsel never installs mdetect on non-i386
architectures. It should install the two separately so that it can cope
with either one being missing.

Here's an untested (sorry) patch:

Index: lib/menu/pkgsel
===================================================================
--- lib/menu/pkgsel	(revision 1139)
+++ lib/menu/pkgsel	(working copy)
@@ -31,12 +31,11 @@
 	# aptitude and installs using aptitude, they will be available.
 	for pkg in mdetect read-edid ; do
 		if ! dpkg --get-selections | grep "$pkg" | grep -q install; then
-			extra="$pkg $extra"
+			if apt-get -y -f install "$pkg" >/dev/null 2>&1; then
+				extra="$pkg $extra"
+			fi
 		fi
 	done
-	if [ "$extra" ] ; then
-		apt-get -y -f install $extra >/dev/null 2>&1 || true
-	fi
 
 	if which tasksel >/dev/null 2>&1; then
 		if [ "$1" = new ]; then

By the way, why the redirection of useful information to /dev/null? It
would have been easier to find this problem if the output had been
visible. I guess the error messages about read-edid not being available
might confuse some people or something.

Thanks,

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