Re: Weird aptitude behavior
On Sat, Jun 03, 2006 at 09:31:54 -0700, Ross Boylan wrote:
> aptitude seemed to expand its list of alternate dependency resolutions
> indefinitely today, during an upgrade in testing that involved lots of
> X changes.
Oh yes, it looks like Xorg 7.0 is coming to Etch. This is the new,
modular version which involves significant changes to the packaging.
> I got an error about dependency problems, with 1 (1) showing at the
> bottom. When I went to examine the proposed solution, I hit next and
> got 2 (2), then 3(3), etc. I stopped around 87.
>
> I thought the display was n (m) where m was the constant number of
> alternatives, and n was the particular alternative. Am I not
> understanding something about how this is supposed to work?
I think you are correct, but you have to realize that there is no
analytical method to determine the number of possible solutions to the
dependency problems. Something as major as the Xorg upgrade results in a
non-trivial combinatorial problem and aptitude will discover many new
"sub-solutions" with each step. Therefore (m) can best be seen as a
lower bound for the number of possible solutions; it can grow as
aptitude explores more and more possible combinations.
> The other odd thing was that I accepted the recommended deletions of
> some packages, but they did not show of as deleted when I hit g to get
> the screen immediately preceding the g for "do the install." However,
> when I did the install, the packages were deleted.
>
> aptitude 0.4.1-1, not affected the upgrade.
> apt was 0.6.43.3, upgraded to 0.6.44.1 by the install.
>
> By the way, the problems centered around my use of nvidia-glx.
I would recommend to save the part of the aptitude log which describes
this upgrade. It might tell you where to start looking if there should
be problems in the future.
Also check out the Xorg 6.9 -> 7.0 transition wiki:
http://wiki.debian.org/Xorg69To7
and the Xorg related posts on this list in mid-April. I tried to write
some sort of summary then:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2006/04/msg02225.html
(Many of the issues described therein are meanwhile resolved, but it may
still be useful to get an overview.)
--
Regards,
Florian
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