Re: dist-upgrade problem with conflicting packages coreutils and shellutils
On Sun, 29 Sep 2002 23:52:42 +0200, Gerhard Gaussling <ggrubbish@web.de> wrote:
> Am Sonntag, 29. September 2002 21:23 schrieb Gerhard Gaussling:
>> What can I do now to progress with dist-upgrade.
> I did
> dpkg --force-overwrite -i shellutils_2.0.12-2_i386.deb
> dpkg --force-overwrite -i textutils_2.1-1_i386.deb
Just a quick note. I have been in similar situations many times, but
have never needed to use dpkg --force-overwrite. I would recommend
against it. It is usually better to intervene at the `higher' apt
level, and not at the `lower' dpkg level in my opinion. A possible
measure, if two packages are conflicting during an upgrade, is to
remove one using apt. After you have finished the rest of the upgrade,
you can always reinstall it. Unless it is so basic that some core
packages depend on it, you can do so safely.
Sometimes, just running apt repeatedly will do the trick. Sometimes
you can get apt to resolve the conflict by doing apt-get -f install,
though this does not always work. Different techniques should be used
depending on the situation, but they should all be high level. Never
force dpkg to do something that might compromise the integrity of its
database. Apt will always respect dependencies etc. so it is more
difficult to do damage using it.
Incidentally, I don't care much for dist-upgrade. What I do is do
apt-get upgrade, and then manually add in the remaining packages using
apt-get install. That way I have complete control at all times.
Just my opinion.
Faheem.
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