Bug#183702: confirmation + apt-get dist-upgrade debug output

[Matt Zimmerman <mdz@debian.org>]

On Sat, Dec 13, 2003 at 11:17:22PM +0100, Dominique Devriese wrote:

> The following packages will be REMOVED:
>   ark console-tools-libs kab karm kate kcalc kcharselect kchart kcoloredit
>   kcron kde kdebase kdebase-audiolibs kdebase-libs kdelibs3 kdelibs3-bin
>   kdepasswd kdf kdict kdm kedit kfind kformula kfract kghostview khexedit
>   kiconedit kit kivio kjots kmail knewsticker knode knotes koffice koffice-libs
>   konqueror konsole kontour korn koshell kpackage kpaint kpm kpresenter kruler
>   kscreensaver ksirc ksnapshot kspread ksysv ktimer kugar kuser kview kword
>   libarts libfam0 libkdenetwork1 libkmid libkonq3 liblcms libvorbis0 nas-lib
>   secpolicy 

Let's reduce the problem to what is actually going wrong.  Many of these are
OK.  These packages are obsolete and are being correctly removed:

console-tools-libs kab kdebase-audiolibs kdebase-libs kdelibs3 kdelibs3-bin
kfract kontour kpm libarts libfam0 libkdenetwork1 libkmid libkonq3 liblcms
libvorbis0 nas-lib

Because kdelibs4 conflicts with the kdelibs3 in woody, no packages which
depend on kdelibs3 can remain on the system.  Note that this completely
defeats the purpose of separating shared libraries, which is to allow smooth
upgrades, so I hope there was a good reason for adding this conflict.

Another problem is with the metapackages, most of which are simply
uninstallable in unstable.  kde depends on kde-core, which depensd on
kdelibs, which does not exist.  This is why the 'kde' metapackage is being
removed.

The rest of the breakage seems to be the result of hundreds more versioned
conflicts which seriously complicate the upgrade.  There is a reason why the
policy manual says:

  A Conflicts entry should almost never have an "earlier than" version
  clause.  This would prevent dpkg from upgrading or installing the package
  which declared such a conflict until the upgrade or removal of the
  conflicted-with package had been completed.

The current relationships result in the problem resolver choosing to remove
many of the problematic packages rather than upgrade them.

> I think what should be done is to add a dummy kdelibs3 package which
> depends on kdelibs4, but I do not have enough apt expertise to be
> certain.  Anyone who knows more ?

That could help, since many conflicts would be removed and replaced by
dependencies on dummy packages.

-- 
 - mdz