Re: WARNING! New Perl/Perl-base upgrade removes 141 Sid/Unstable packages

[Rick Thomas <rbthomas@pobox.com>]

On Sep 28, 2016, at 12:55 PM, Andre Majorel <aym-naibed@teaser.fr> wrote:

> On 2016-09-28 10:46 -0500, John Hasler wrote:
>> Vincent Lefevre writes:
>>> Things like that should not happen. But this is not a bug in the perl
>>> packages. This is a misfeature of apt / aptitude, which want to remove
>>> packages instead of holding the new packages (well, AFAIK, aptitude
>>> has improved, but is still not perfect).
>> 
>> Aptitude can't read your mind.  When you tell it to install
>> something it assumes that you mean what you say and proposes
>> solutions to any conflicts based on various heuristics.
> 
> When there's some kind of conflict during a package installation
> or upgrade, the first solutions proposed by aptitude almost
> invariably involve large numbers of package removals. The
> simple solution that upgrades/installs what can be and leaves
> the rest alone is usually there but buried under at least three
> -- and sometimes tens of -- very disruptive ones.

In situations like this, I’ve found it very useful to use the “r” response when aptitude tells me “the following actions will resolve these conflicts” listing one or more deletions that I don’t like.  It allows me to “reject” a particular action.  After that, the rejected action will not appear in future presented solutions.

Does that help?
Rick