hi folks,
starting with some frustration about error messages from using apt
I started some analysis on the Debian Package infos.
As you know Debian has a detailed system to reference packages
on the relation of "depend", "recommend, "conflict" and others.
About this references I have two things to discuss:
I.
Sometimes it occures a package is referenced by this system of references
but in fact it doesn't exist.
I compiled the data of the "Packages" files in a sqlite database with
some tables so I can run some comfortable queries.
So I asked which packages are referenced by the Debian dependency
system but does not exist. I got the following astonishing results:
conflicts 5251
depends 5277
enhances 52
provides 4142
recommends 763
replaces 3921
suggests 2092
What do you think about these results?
I think there has to be a process to avoid these errors and wrong infos.
II.
Sometimes it occures that a package lists a 'conflict', but the corresponding
package does not. I would like to see a 'conflict' list on both packages.
As I understand, the info files are maintained individually by the package
maintainers. May be a process can be established to harmonize the
entries in the individually package info files. If i.e. a 'conlict' has been
named it shoul appear in the corresponding package info file.
greetings
michael
examples:
Package: abuse
...
Conflicts: abuse-sdl (<< 0.6.1-2)
a package 'abuse-sdl' does not exist
Package: abiword-common
...
Recommends: abiword-help, aspell-en | aspell-dictionary
Package: auctex
...
Replaces: preview-latex
a package 'preview-latex' does not exist
Package: muttprint
...
Enhances: mail-reader, news-reader
a package 'news-reader' does not exist