Bug#240769: xlibs causing removal of j2sdk1.3, xv, et cetera?

[Tim McDaniel <tmcd@panix.com>]

Package: xlibs
Version: 4.3.0-7
Severity: important

I suspect that the xlibs upgrade in testing is going to cause a
substantial number of old programs to be deleted, including xv and
Java 1.3.  At least those two are important to me, hence the severity.

I am using the testing release.  (Whether this is sarge, woody, sid,
potato, or priceofteainchina, I don't know and don't know how to find
out.)  I did an apt-get -yud dist-upgrade

The result:

    The following packages will be REMOVED:

      communicator-base-473 communicator-nethelp-473
      communicator-smotif-473 communicator-spellchk-473
      fonttastic-glibc-2.1 gwm j2sdk1.3 kaffe libwraster1 netscape-base-4
      netscape-base-473 netscape-java-473 netscape-smotif-473
      wine-wpo2000-glibc-2.1 wpo2000-minimal wpo2000-minimal-std xf86setup
      xlib6g xproxy xv

    The following NEW packages will be installed:

      lam4 libice6 libsm6 libx11-6 libxext6 libxft1 libxi6 libxmu6
      libxmuu1 libxp6 libxpm4 libxrandr2 libxt6 libxtrap6 libxtst6 libxv1
      xlibs-data

    The following packages will be upgraded:

      apt apt-utils blacs-mpich-dev blacs1-lam blacs1-mpich doc-linux-html
      doc-linux-text eject iptables lam-runtime libdb4.1 libdps1
      libgpg-error0 libhdf5-serial-1.6.1-0 libmetacity0 libxaw6 libxaw7
      libxcursor1 libxft2 libxrender1 metacity netpipe-lam netpipe-mpich
      netpipe-pvm netpipe-tcp scalapack-mpich-dev scalapack1-lam
      scalapack1-mpich scalapack1-pvm twm xbase-clients xdm xfonts-100dpi
      xfonts-75dpi xfonts-base xfonts-cyrillic xfonts-scalable
      xfree86-common xfs xlibs xmh xnest xprt xserver-common xterm xutils
      xvfb

Note the large list of packages to be removed, including xlib6g (which
apparently a number of other packages depend on),
fonttastic-glibc-2.1, j2sdk1.3, xf86setup, xv, et cetera.

By going into dselect manually, I see

    Dependency/conflict resolution - introduction.

    One or more of your choices have raised a conflict or dependency
    problem - ...

xlib6g's conflicts are listed as

    xlibs conflicts with xlib6g
    libwraster1 depends on xlib6g (>= 3.3.6-4)
    fonttastic-glibc-2.1 depends on xlib6g (>= 3.3.5-1)
    j2sdk1.3 depends on xlib6g (>= 3.3.6-4)
    xv depends on xlib6g (>= 3.3.6)
    communicator-smotif-473 depends on xlib6g (>= 3.3.6-4)
    wine-wpo2000-glibc-2.1 depends on xlib6g (>= 3.3.5-1)
    xf86setup depends on xlib6g (>= 3.3.6-4)
    xproxy depends on xlib6g (>= 3.3.6-4)
    netscape-base-4 depends on xlib6g (>= 3.3.6-4)
    kaffe depends on xlib6g (>= 3.3.6)
    gwm depends on xlib6g (>= 3.3.5)

but xlibs says just

    xlibs conflicts with xlib6g

dselect reports xlibs as being Inst.ver 4.2.1-12.1 and Avail.ver
4.3.0-7, and

    xlibs - X Window System client libraries metapackage and XKB data

    This package smooths upgrades from Debian 3.0 by depending on the
    individual library packages into which each shared object formerly
    contained in this package has been split.

    This package is only depended upon by packages that haven't yet
    been compiled against the new shared library packages. ...

xlib6g says Inst.ver and Avail.ver are both 4.2.1-3, and

    xlib6g - pseudopackage providing X libraries

    This package smooths the migration from Debian 2.2 by depending on
    xlibs and libxaw6.  This pseudopackage is only depended upon by
    packages that haven't yet been compiled against the newer X
    library packages.

    This package also conflicts with packages that are no longer
    supported in Debian and do not comply with the Debian app-defaults
    policy.  (In some cases, the functionality of these old packages
    has been absorbed into other packages in Debian 3.0 ("woody").)

I don't know what the state of the packages was before this apt-get --
I am not familiar with the apt/dpkg/dselect system.  My guess is that
the latest xlibs update in testing now says that it conflicts with
xlib6g, so dselect/apt-get decided that it needs to get rid of xlib6g
and everything that depends on it.

I was taken aback at the number of packages to be lost.  Though many
of those packages are obsolete or things that I don't use (so far as I
know), I would much rather not lose xv and Java 1.3 (and possibly
kaffe), at least.  Netscape 4.73 is nice for compatibility testing.
Is it really necessary for Debian (or very useful) to blow them out of
the water?

-- 
Tim McDaniel (home); Reply-To: tmcd@panix.com; work is tmcd@us.ibm.com.