nmap build-depends on libpcap-dev causing problems - is this a bug?
I'm having problems building nmap and xprobe from source because of build-depends on libpcap-dev.
I'm running sarge on i386 and have libpcap0.8-dev installed, which
allows both nmap and xprobe to build without error if I use
"dpkg-buildpackage -d" to override the dependency check.
If I try to install libpcap-dev, it removes libpcap0.8-dev and installs
libpcap0.7-dev - effectively downgrading the libpcap development
libraries. I don't want to do this, because everything compiles
fine with 0.8, so I see no reason to downgrade to 0.7.
The reason for the downgrade is that libpcap-dev depends on libpcap0.7-dev, but libpcap0.8-dev does not satisfy this dependency.
Is this a bug? If so, which package is in error - nmap for
specifying libpcap-dev, or libpcap-dev for not allowing libpcap0.8-dev
to meet the dependency?
I also note that the notes for libpcap-dev say that it is a "Empty
package to facilitate upgrades, can be safely removed", so I guess this
means that other packages shouldn't have depends against it.
Roy
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