Re: Bug#41091: Apt fails to install some packages
On Sat, 10 Jul 1999, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> And apt is able to install most of the packages from the distrib, only 79
> of 3719 cannot be installed. And my bug report is precisely about those
> failure.
Well, APT has been designed to do alot of things in a good manner, some
cases do not go quite as you would like so that other cases behave
more sensibly. Likely you hare running into some of that.
> - a package declares a Depends on a virtual package without giving
> advice (ie without using the "real | virtual" syntax).
> Apt here simply fails like that :
Packages that do this are somewhat in violation of policy, they are
supposed to declare a dependency on a real package so that tools like APT
and dselect have something they can choose. I remember looking into some of these before and
deciding there wasn't anything reasonable that could be done about them.
For instance nasm-mode has a depends line like this:
Depends: xemacs19 | xemacs20
What's a package manager to do? Basically APT gets upset when it finds or
groups and purely virtual packages that haven't been explicitly resolved,
it does not make random choices.
> There are other cases were apt is failing with the same error but it
> really should not. For example, if I decide to install dotfile-bash
> it will fail because dotfile is not installed but if you add dotfile to
> the command line then everything is ok :
This has to do with the wish packages if I remember properly.
> And I have many similar problem with other packages : cmucl-clx and cmucl
> for example or ifcico and ifmail. If you want more, simply ask, I've got
> the complete list here. :)
Run your list with -o debug::pkgproblemresolver=true and see what the
causes of the failures are, there should be two categories
- some types of OR groups
- Virtual Packages w/o an OR to declare a default
The first I might be able to fix up some of them..
> And a last request, is there a way to make apt-get automatically install
> recommends (and/or suggests) ?
Nope, that would be complicated to get into a usable form.
Jason
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