* Bill Moseley (moseley@hank.org) [030206 20:02]: > On Thu, 6 Feb 2003, Colin Watson wrote: > > > Frank's quite correct: there's no particular reason why xdm should be > > reinstalled on upgrade, and you'll be told about it if for some bizarre > > reason this is going to happen. > > Ah good, thanks for the clearing up what Frank was implying. > > So if package a package such as x-window-system depends on another > package, say xdm, and after installation you remove xdm. Then what You can't just remove a package that another installed package depends upon. A package installed without its depended-upon packages is broken. The package management tools try to keep you from getting into such an inconsistent state. > happens if dist-upgrade wants to install a newer version of > x-window-system that depends on xdm which is not installed? Will xdm not > be installed? I understand that apt-get will say that it's going to do > so. What you might be thinking of is a new package being introduced into debian or a package whose dependencies change. The 'dist-upgrade' action will install new packages in order to satisfy dependencies of already installed packages. For example, you have version 3.0 of package 'foo'. Then you apt-get update and learn that there's a version 3.2, which now depends on 'bar'. If you then did 'apt-get upgrade', you'd see that foo would be held back, as the dependencies would not be met by upgrading it. 'apt-get dist-upgrade' will tell you "the following additional packages are being installed: bar" and continue to upgrade to foo version 3.2 and the current version of bar. Note that this has nothing to do with whether or not you've ever had bar on your system. It has nothing to do with a package removed being reinstalled -- just that it needs to be installed to satisfy a package you've requested to upgrade. good times, Vineet -- http://www.doorstop.net/ -- "Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited email message. Nor will I forward chain letters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings to large numbers of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the online community." - Roger Ebert, "The Boulder Pledge"
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