Bug#235525: debian-policy: [PROPOSAL] Relax priority relations between packages (Policy 2.5)
On Wed, Mar 03, 2004 at 11:57:59AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 02, 2004 at 08:28:38PM +0100, Andreas Barth wrote:
> > * Anthony Towns (aj@azure.humbug.org.au) [040302 18:40]:
> > I don't know if you've every used a tool like dselect or aptitude.
>
> Considering I've sent patches in for dselect, the odds are pretty good that
> I've used it, don't you think?
Your messages in this bug reports suggest that you're not familiar
with dselect's problems.
> > But
> > if you had, you might have noticed that packages of certain priorities
> > are automatically added to the to-be-installed packages, even if there
> > is no explicit dependency on them.
>
> Indeed. This is the case for *available* >=standard packages. Ones that
> are obsolete won't get automatically reselected after being uninstalled.
"After being uninstalled" means that they get installed, and need to
be manually uninstalled. They shouldn't be installed in the first
place, and they should not be marked for installation as well.
> In fact, ones that aren't both new and >=standard won't get automatically
> selected anyway.
And having unneeded library packages selected automatically is a bad
thing.
> > And, Anthony, please let me repeat my question: Why do we _need_ the
> > current policy statemnt?
>
> Because it allows us to easily say "just install all of standard" and
> be confident we'll have a complete and consistent system.
Currently, our tools won't even allow installing packages without
automatically satisfying dependencies, so the vast majority of our
users won't even notice this policy change.
> > Is there any reason for it, beside that you
> > dislike exim4, the way it is packaged or its maintainers?
>
> The problem with the proposal is that it doesn't solve exim4's problem. If
> the dependencies are changed in the way that's desired, changing from
> exim4 to postfix will result in the exact same bad situation.
AFAIR, aptitude is capable of tracking the cause for a package's
installation. If libfoo is installed as a dependency of
$RANDOM_PACKAGE, aptitude will automatically remove libfoo when no
other package depends on it. If libfoo is installed because it is
priority important, it is bound to stay until manually uninstalled.
Greetings
Marc
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