Re: Problems with Debian PowerPC

[Frans Pop <elendil@planet.nl>]

On Thursday 17 December 2009, Rick Thomas wrote:
> > What problems exist in Squeeze?
>
> Here's the Squeeze problem (from my original posting in this thread):
> >>> 3) When I install a "graphical desktop environment" with Squeeze
> >>> using the above d-i images, I get a system that is missing almost
> >>> all of gnome due to un-resolvable dependency conflicts.

Ah, sorry. I'd not read that correctly. I thought you were talking about 
sid there too. That invalidates part of my earlier responses.

So, it can be
- a general problem resulting from the release team forcing through some
  migration and thus (*temporarily*) breaking dependencies
- an architecture specific problem where the release team has decided to
  ignore breakage on powerpc in order not to delay other arches
- an unknown issue

I've just checked if the gnome task is installable for Squeeze on amd64, 
and it is. So either the problem has already been solved, or it is 
specific to powerpc.

> > Please file an installation report.
> I did, a while ago: Bug#560684

OK. I missed that one (or deleted it without really looking at it as it 
wasn't an issue I'm personally very interested in).

I would expect Otavio as D-I release manager to be interested in the 
installability of Gnome as it affects his plans to release D-I alpha1.

(And please do not over-inflate the severity of bug reports: a desktop 
environment not being installable does not make the installation system 
unusable.)

> But you'll just say "there is *nothing* wrong with the installer", so
> what's the point?

The point is that *we* cannot do anything about it. You need to report 
problems to the people responsible for the packages that are failing.

> I'll repeat my offer: What can I, as a non developer -- just an
> interested and willing tester, do to help?

Find out the exact cause of the problems and report them to the relevant 
maintainers:
- which packages have dependency problems
- is the problem only on powerpc, or is it general

These things can be found out relatively simply using aptitude and 
packages.debian.org.

Cheers,
FJP