Re: dist-upgrade strangeness: dependencies not deconfigured

[Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Steve Langasek writes ("Re: dist-upgrade strangeness: dependencies not deconfigured"):
> For the record, the removal of texlive-common without the deconfiguring of
> texlive-base is because apt will pass --force-depends to dpkg.

I think this is a (longstanding) bug in apt.  It should never be
necessary to pass --force-depends to dpkg.

>  It does this
> because in various scenarios, dpkg when left to its own devices can find
> itself in a catch-22 on dist-upgrades.

I think these situations are not (generally) exposing bugs in dpkg.
They are exposing bugs in the package dependencies.

The correct approach would be for apt to refuse to do the upgrade.
Then someone will file an RC bug and the dependencies would be fixed.

>  So apt deliberately lets the
> dependencies be broken, with the expectation that it can fix them up again
> afterwards.

I think this is improper.  It is also unnecessary if the dependencies
are correct.

Ian.