Bug#217363: Dpkg is too strict about overwriting other packages' files
Package: dpkg
Version: 1.10.15
Dpkg aborts at every sign of a package trying to overwrite other
packages's files. But this is happening a lot now with kde packages (I'm
using CVS HEAD builds from an external source, but a friend of mine just
had a problem with packages from unstable), in which it seems that icons
are transitioning from applications packages to kdelibs-data. Thus, a
simple upgrade (I'm running unstable) screws apt very bad because
kdelibs-data tries to upgrade an icon file which is also on another
package, and dpkg just aborts, leaving some packages unconfigured, and apt
unusable. The only solution is to dpkg --purge the application to let the
kdelibs-data upgrade resume. It is very exaggerated to leave the system in
an unusable state just because of some icons.
I suggest that dpkg be a bit more tolerant to these file overwrites: It
should just popup a message (in the style of the one that pops when
some pkg tries to overwrite modified configuration files, but
showing only date/size of the files, as the content could not be
meaningful) asking if you want to keep the old, install the new, or
install to a different filename. Of course, this _should_ not happen, and
package maintainers should not rely on this feature, but this could help a
lot with buggy/transitional/experimental packages... Just to be sure, this
message should suggest filing a bug against the affected packages...
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