Re: Is this bug in aptitude?

[Wackojacko <wackojacko32@ntlworld.com>]

Daniel Burrows wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 11:02:08AM +0300, "Eugene V. Lyubimkin" <jackyf.devel@gmail.com> was heard to say:
> > Rob Gom wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > > is this bug in aptitude when I try:
> > > $ aptitude install a
> > > [...]
> > > b will be removed
> > > $ aptitude install a b
> > > [...]
> > > b will be removed
> > > [OK]
> > > $ aptitude install b
> > > [b is installed fine, the same with a]
> > >
> > > So why does aptitude want to remove package b in the first place?
>
>   [snip]
>
> > Aptitude tries to remove automatically installed packages. If you
> > manually install them, aptitude won't try to do this. It's not a bug.
>
>   It is interesting that "install a b" doesn't flag "b" as manual.
>
>   The command-line parsing logic is hairy and tries to "do the right
> thing" in various cases, but this one seems to be falling through
> the cracks (due to when aptitude calculates unused removals).  Problem
> is, I'd have to be careful adding code to handle this situation: the
> command-line is one of the few parts of aptitude that's not very well
> specified, and so I'm not sure exactly what would happen if I tried
> various hacks to do what you (quite reasonably) expect here.  I don't
> see any obvious problems, but it's entirely possible that some other
> use case would be affected.
>
>   Daniel

Daniel

I don't know whether you saw my earlier message 
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2008/08/msg02156.html but the OP has 
testing and unstable in his sources list and is doing

#aptitude install -t unstable a

so wouldn't this remove any testing packages that conflict with a or any 
of its dependencies?

#aptitude install -t unstable b

will then install the new package from unstable as its supposed to.

This is how I read the OP and wouldn't want you to spend time hacking 
for a problem that doesn't IMHO exist.  Mixing dists will cause these 
anomalies and they should be expected, no?

HTH

Wackojacko