Re: APT broken ?
On Sat, 4 Apr 1998, Raul Miller wrote:
> Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca> wrote:
> > APT will -never- allow you to do something that results in broken
> > dependancies, it does very complete checking of this at all stages of
> > the installation.
>
> How do you mark a package as "outside the scope of APT"?
There is not a way presently. That might be a good solution to the problem
with desired unmet dependancies... Will think about it.
> > If you solely use APT for installation this will never be an issue,
> > generally with dpkg it is not an issue, but there are some ways you can
> > convince dpkg to install packages that breaks dependencies without it
> > telling you.
>
> These need to be documented, and you should be refering to the appropriate
> documentation (eventually).
Which are you refering to? If you mean the ways dpkg can break
dependancies then check the bug page for dpkg.
> > I'm thinking strongly about making a command or option to 'jump start'
> > things by figuring out how to correct the packages..
>
> It would be more valuable to document the mechanisms, as understanding
> is critical for dealing with "out of scope" issues.
This is not in the scope of program documentation - it is basic
understanding of the packaging system, what dependancies mean, how to
operate dpkg and so on. A newbie document entailing this would be nice,
but I am probably not the best candidate for such a document.
When the GUI gets going then this will be simpler because it shows what
packages have problems and lets the user explore their choices. The
'upgrade' alogrithms apt-get uses for some of it's functions will be menu
options most likely. So instead of saying apt-get dist-upgrade you can
simply choose the dist upgrade menu option and tune things to your liking.
As for documenting the decision alogirthms apt-get uses in some of the
more complex situations (like fixing a broken system, distribution
upgrades, ordering) I will do that eventually, but it is not 'newbie'
documentation, it will be technical. The routines themselves are
complex and it is very difficult to predict exactly what they will do
unless you do an extensive analyisis of what you have asked them to do.
General predictions are easy, and are documented in the man page.
The complex routines always show the results of their decisions and ask if
the user wants to accept them.
> (1) removing a package from the selection, of
> (2) installing the package, and of
> (3) installing an equivalently named home-grown package with no
> dependencies or conflicts.
The gui effectively does the first two - this is not in the scope of the
apt-get command line tool.
> > I have actually never seen a normal system that has a perfect
> > dependancy setup when I first bring APT onto it, I fix it and I never
> > see the errors again - I wonder how much subtle breakage has happened
> > on these machines..
>
> I have seen subtle breakage on my systems, and would be delighted if APT
> solves this.
>
> Then again, most of the subtle breakage seems to happen in the early
> stages of testing an "unstable" release, and it's going to be a bit
> before APT has much of a track record.
Actually every hamm -> bo upgrade I have done has had these problems. If
APT was working at the time they would have never happened, and I could
have done the upgrade in 10 mins not an hour :>
Jason
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