Re: Pre-Depends: dpkg (>= 1.15.7.2) for dpkg-maintscript-helper okay?
On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 20:55, Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> wrote:
>> What apt, aptitude do:
>
>> I don't know. Do they allow an already satisfied Pre-Depends to
>> complicate the upgrade path? IIRC dpkg, as an essential package,
>> always gets upgraded first anyway, but I am not so familiar with this
>> code.
To get that straight:
It could complicate the installation: Without the Pre-Depends on dpkg
it can be in any state, if you depend on it it needs to be fully configured.
This is a huge difference every time you want to upgrade package A and
dpkg at the same time. Without the Pre-Depends an unpack/configure order
problem doesn't exist as they have no connection. Add the Pre-Depends and
you have to make sure to not unpack dpkg before configuring A - or the other
way around. Will be fun in case of dependency loops.
Beside that it is easy to generate "interesting" trees with it like #610991.
That said, as dpkg is essential it gets a preferred handling anyway in APT
(and friends) and will be unpacked/configured before non-essentials, so in
this specific case its more or less a no-op (in squeeze -> wheezy upgrade),
but that shouldn't give a bye in general…
Best regards
David Kalnischkies
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