On 0, Aurelio Turco <a.turco@bom.gov.au> wrote: > In man dselect, section BUGS, it says: > > dselect doesn't handle "Recommends:" > field very well, and doesn't understand > "Replaces:" at all. > > Can anyone elaborate on any of this, so that > one knows what to look-out for and possibly > rectify, when using dselect? > > In regards to the "Recommends:" part, the > meaning may be simply that, unlike apt-get, > dselect brings-in "recommended" packages by > default. But this is hardly a bug (if not > actually the better action in most cases), > i would have thought. dselect treats Recommends: identically to Requires:, which is significantly different from just bringing in recommended packages by default; if you are using dselect then you *must* install the recommended packages. Otherwise dselect will consistantly bombard you with dependency problems until you give up and just use apt. As for not understanding Replaces:, I am not sure exactly what is meant by it, but it sounds like you can have two packages providing the same functionality without dselect complaining - even if they contain files with the same path/name. The default should be that dselect will uninstall the replaced packages when you select the replacing packages. Otherwise apt/dpkg will compain horribly when it comes to actually installing stuff that two packages provide the same file, and slowly your dselect experience will become a dependency nightmare. I have discarded dselect for everyday use because of the recommends: problem; if I apt-get a package and don't install its recommends: packages, then dselect complains about it every time I start it up. I use dselect to install a very basic system, then use apt-get everytime I want an uninstalled package. Tom -- Tom Cook Information Technology Services, The University of Adelaide Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience. Get my GPG public key: https://pinky.its.adelaide.edu.au/~tkcook/tom.cook-at-adelaide.edu.au
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