Yet another apt/deselect question

[Paul Mackinney <paul@mackinney.net>]

I keep getting the same pattern of behavior from apt and dselect, but I
can't quite figure out what's happening. Can someone explain what's 
going on?

I'm running Woody. When I apt-get update; apt-get install, I always get
the following message:

  0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 4  not upgraded.

where 4 is an arbitrary number corresponding to the updated packages
since my last update. Next I run dselect. Without changing any package
selections, it tells me that it wants to install samba-common, mkiofs,
and smbfs. Here are the line in the conflict resolution section, and the 
relevant text for each line:

 *** Opt net      samba-common Samba common files used by both the...
 *** Xtr otherosf cdrecord     A command line CD/DVD writing tool
  ** Opt otherosf smbfs        mount and umount commands for the...

samba-common text:
smbfs depends on samba-common (= 2.0.7-3)

cdrecord text:
cdrecord recommends mkisofs
mkisofs does not appear to be available

smbfs text:
smbfs depends on samba-common (= 2.0.7-3)


So what I do is type 'Q' to force dselect to accept my selections. When
I do, smbfs does NOT get installed, and the 4 updates occur.

My questions are: 
1. Why do the unresolved dependancies prevent apt from
updating other packages that have nothing to do with these?

2. Why isn't smbfs getting installed? Since the samba-common version
satisfies the stated dependancy, I assume that there's a package bug. No
big deal, but dselect should install smbfs if I've forced the selection,
right?

TIA, Paul

-- 
Paul Mackinney
paul@mackinney.net <- Please note new email address