Bug#190558: openoffice.org: circular dependencies between openoffice.org and openoffice.org-bin
* Henning Glawe <glaweh@physik.fu-berlin.de> [030424 15:20]:
> When using FAI or a similar autoinstaller, many packages may be left
> unconfigure because of circular dependencies between openoffice.org
> packages. apt-get is called with a _long_ list of packages to install,
> which are partly fet unconfigured if one of them fails to configure.
I do not see why circular dependencies should be a problem. An
dpkg --configure -a or a apt-get -f install should cause anything to
be configured, if any part failed. If anything fails to configure it
is this packages problem.
> besides such circular dependencies violate debian policy:
> Depends: blah
> in blubb means package blah has to be configured before configuration
> of blubb which is quite impossible if blah depends on blubb, though work
> sometimes; in these cases, dpkgs behaviour get chaotic: sometimes it
> works, sometimes not...
Are you sure, you are not confusing dependencies and pre-dependencies?
(to quote policy 2.3.4:
Sometimes, a package requires another package to be installed *and*
configured before it can be installed. In this case, you must specify
a Pre-Depends entry for the package.
)
Circular dependencies are quite a normal way to specifiy things to be
installed together. Though any part should be able to configure before
the other is configured. (This is true for any dependency and not only
circular ones.)
Could you elaborate what goes wrong a bit more, so one can see what
is causing problems?
Hochachtungsvoll,
Bernhard R. Link
--
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve
nor will he ever receive either. (Benjamin Franklin)
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