On 5/12/2010 4:24 PM, Chris Austin wrote:
I've learned today that when there are circular conflicts while upgrading, e.g. libcairo2 has to be upgraded to install xulrunner-1.9.1, but upgrading libcairo2 breaks xulrunner-1.9, it helps to use the dpkg --auto-deconfigure option before the -i action-parameter, e.g. dpkg --auto-deconfigure -i libcairo2_1.8.10-4_i386.deb Then dpkg gives a nice message about considering deconfiguration of xulrunner-1.9, then decides to do it, and it works, or at least, it has done, the two or three times I have tried it today.
This may be a better way than I have been forced to do it. Circular depencies crop up in Sid a lot. The solution then is usually to be patient and wait for the Debians to straighten it out.
However, sometimes, one can't wait, and at such times, I have downloaded each package directly, using a web browser (or wget) and then used dpkg with options like --ignore-depends= or --force-overwrite. Not recommended. Not for newbies. Not for the faint-of-heart.
But if we wanted to play it safe, we would stick to stable, and only upgrade to major releases. And we would be content. (And never learn anything.)
dpkg --auto-deconfigure is a gentler way, but you might want to see if aptitude can make some suggestions before jumping off the deep end.
And don't neglect the -s option of apt-get (and corresponding option of other package managers) to do dry runs.
MAA