Bug#263061: broken dependencies tetex-bin Conflicts: tetex-base (<= 2.0.2a-1)

[Frank Küster <frank@debian.org>]

Florent Rougon <f.rougon@free.fr> schrieb:

> Frank Küster <frank@debian.org> wrote:
>
>> Since you are using unstable, you should know how to find out whether
>> this is the case:
>>
>> http://incoming.debian.org/
>
> Dear Frank,
>
> I downloaded the latest packages (versions are showned below) from
> 'incoming' but I think there still is a problem:
>
[...]
> This means that if you have "too old" versions of tetex-base and
> tetex-bin installed, you cannot upgrade directly to the latest versions
> because neither tetex-bin nor tetex-base can be unpacked due to the
> Conflicts. One way work around the problem is to remove (not even purge)
> tetex-base and tetex-bin and then install the new versions. But as
> things currently are, I cannot see how upgrades from woody will work.

I always checked upgrades from woody. You can't do it with dpkg, but
with "apt-get dist-upgrade" or aptitude. You'll get something like:

Dependency problems: tetex-bin depends in tetex-base
                     bla depends on tetex-base (>=1.0.xxx)
But removing anyway as you request.

Then it will remove tetex-base, upgrade tetex-bin and reinstall
tetex-base. 

> If you describe the rationale behind the dependencies in the latest
> versions, we'll probably be able to work out a good solution to the
> problem.

For the more recent versions, a versioned depends of tetex-bin on
tetex-base would be sufficient. But in older versions of 2.0.2,
conflicts were indeed introduced (that must have been before the time
that I got deeply involved last summer, it was "always there").

One or two versions ago, I changed the control file of tetex-bin from

Depends: tetex-base (>= 2.0.2-$a)
Conflicts: tetex-base (< 2.0.2-$b)

with $b < $a

to only

Depends: tetex-base
Conflicts: tetex-base (< 2.0.2-$a)

just to make it simpler for administration. But this makes no difference
for installation or upgrade - we needed dist-upgrade even with the old
scheme for upgrades from woody.

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster, Biozentrum der Univ. Basel
Abt. Biophysikalische Chemie