Re: virtual-package-depends-without-real-package-depends rsh-client
On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 07:14:16PM -0700, Bob Proulx wrote:
> Bug 179614! It appears to me that this is a similar but not quite
> identical problem. In that bug the packages were all real packages
> and none of them were virtual. I could not deduce that any of them
> were virtual. So I will file this as a seperate bug and reference the
> above as additional information.
No, it is the same bug. dhcp-client is a mixed virtual package (of the
worst kind, it should not even be a virtual package).
> > Is it certain that none of the rsh-like alternatives will work here? Why?
>
> This is a legacy corporate environment on a private network without
> Internet access. (Does a socks server count as Internet access?
> Let's not discuss that!) And there is a lot of legacy. It will take
> a while to get all of the people educated about SSH.
>
> SSH in this environment is one of those "new fangled thangs" and it is
> not so much that not everything is converted over but more that the
> few that have converted over to ssh are the exception. The majority
> of the people and applications are still using rsh. Like backup.
> Something that if I interfered with I would get run out'a Dodge on a
> rail.
>
> And Debian is the newcomer to the network. Mostly it has been
> commercial vendor systems. Politically I need Debian to play nicely
> with the other less capable children.
Hmm...I assume this package is only for your local use, then, in which case
you may specify whatever sorts of dependencies are appropriate for your
environment.
> > If you are absolutely certain that ssh (for example) will not work at all,
> > then you can guarantee that you will get the real package by specifying a
> > versioned dependency, though this is not terribly elegant and may break in
> > the future if versioned Provides are implemented.
>
> Use versioned depends to trick lintian not to see this as a virtual
> package. Interesting! Yes, I tried that and it did silence that
> warning. Thank you for suggesting that. Since this meta package is
> for my own internal use only and I can change it on demand as needed I
> can react to any future change in versioned Provides.
Not just to silence Lintian, this will actually prevent any of the rsh-like
alternatives from being installed, by virtue of dpkg's current behaviour
with regard to versioned depends on virtual packages.
--
- mdz
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