Am 12.04.25 um 09:56 schrieb Paul Gevers:
Hi, On 12-04-2025 08:34, Marc Haber wrote:Otoh, Essential packages can break many other packages without having an explicit reverse dependency listed since they are assumed always present and since it's a bug to explicitly list a dependency on an Essential package.Conform 3.5: "Packages are not required to declare any dependencies they have on other packages which are marked Essential (see below), and should not do so unless they depend on a particular version of that package. [4]" That footnote was an eye-opener for me: "Essential is needed in part to avoid unresolvable dependency loops on upgrade. If packages add unnecessary dependencies on packages in this set, the chances that there will be an unresolvable dependency loop caused by forcing these Essential packages to be configured first before they need to be is greatly increased. It also increases the chances that frontends will be unable to calculate an upgrade path, even if one exists."
This is not relevant for test dependencies though, so it should be fine to list dependencies on essential packages in debian/tests/control?
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