install-info changes

[Brian May <bam@snoopy.debian.net>]

Hello,

I am getting rather confused with the install-info changes, and what I am
expected to do.

First I see:

http://wiki.debian.org/Transitions/DpkgToGnuInstallInfo which says "dpkg ships
a new /usr/sbin/install-info that will call /usr/bin/install-info with the same
arguments." However dpkg doesn't appear to depend on install-info, in which case
how can it be sure /usr/bin/install-info will exist?

So I consider the possibility that install-info is essential. It isn't. It seems
though that sed depends on install-info, and sed is essential, which would
imply install-info is essential too.

    sys11:/home/brian# dpkg -s install-info
    Package: install-info
    Status: install ok installed
    Priority: important
    Section: doc
    Installed-Size: 252
    Maintainer: Debian TeX maintainers <debian-tex-maint@lists.debian.org>
    Architecture: i386
    Source: texinfo
    Version: 4.13a.dfsg.1-5
    Replaces: texinfo (<< 4.13a.dfsg.1-2)
    Depends: libc6 (>= 2.3.4)
    Conflicts: texinfo (<< 4.13a.dfsg.1-2)
    Description: Manage installed documentation in info format
     The install-info utility creates the index of all installed documentation
     in info format and makes it available to info readers.
    sys11:/home/brian# apt-get remove install-info
    Reading package lists... Done
    Building dependency tree       
    Reading state information... Done
    The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
      libkeyutils1 libkrb5-3 libkrb5support0 libidn11 libcurl3-gnutls libk5crypto3 cpio ca-certificates libssl0.9.8 openssl libgssapi-krb5-2
    Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
    The following packages will be REMOVED:
      install-info
    WARNING: The following essential packages will be removed.
    This should NOT be done unless you know exactly what you are doing!
      install-info (due to sed)
    0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
    After this operation, 258kB disk space will be freed.
    You are about to do something potentially harmful.
    To continue type in the phrase 'Yes, do as I say!' ?] ^C


Sed has:

    Depends: dpkg (>= 1.15.4) | install-info

dpkg is version 1.15.4.1

    sys11:/home/brian# dpkg -l dpkg 
    Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
    | Status=Not/Inst/Cfg-files/Unpacked/Failed-cfg/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
    |/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
    ||/ Name                                                            Version                                                         Description
    +++-===============================================================-===============================================================-==============================================================================================================================================
    ii  dpkg                                                            1.15.4.1                                                        Debian package management system


Why does apt-get want to remove sed? Doesn't dpkg satisfy the depends?

However, despite install-info being "essential" I get a bug report #552677
which is from install-info not being found by a sbuilder. It appears
to find the wrapper in dpkg but not the install-info.

Also the lintian check recommended I do something similar for heimdal-doc in my
package. How does this dependency ensure install-info is installed if
the install-info provided by dpkg is just a wrapper to /usr/bin/install-info?

Confused.

So as I see it, there are several issues here:

1. apt-get bug in that it wants to remove sed for no good reason.

2. dpkg bug in that it doesn't depend on install-info.
  OR
2. lintian should recommend Depends: "install-info" not "Depends: dpkg (>= 1.15.4) | install-info", as installing
dpkg doesn't resolve the dependency on install-info.

Thanks for any help!
-- 
Brian May <bam@snoopy.debian.net>