Bug#41939: apt: APT is confused if dependencies of installed packages are different from dependencies in available packages

[gsstark@mit.edu]

Package: apt
Version: 0.3.3


I recompiled alsa locally so I can install them without breaking the entire
system by installing libc6.1. Now apt won't let me install anything else
because it thinks I have unmet dependencies.

There are two things wrong here:

1) I don't have unmet dependencies at all, everything is hunky dory 

# dpkg -s alsalib0.3.2
Package: alsalib0.3.2
Status: install ok installed
Priority: extra
Section: sound
Installed-Size: 52
Maintainer: David Huggins-Daines <dhd@debian.org>
Source: alsalib
Version: 0.3.2-1
Replaces: alsalib0.3.0
Provides: alsalib
Depends: libc6
Suggests: alsadriver
Conflicts: alsalib, alsalib0.3.0
Description: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (libraries)
 ALSA is an effort to create a modules sound system for Linux,
 while maintaining full compatibility with OSS/Lite.
 .
 This package contains the libraries.


2) I'm not asking APT to do anything that has anything to do with these
   packages. Having any little discrepancy completely paralyze APT like this is
   extremely fragile. I've complained about this before, APT should be more
   robust by default in face of (supposedly) invalid input.

You might want to run `apt-get -f install' to correct these.
Sorry, but the following packages have unmet dependencies:
  alsalib0.3.2: Depends: libc6 (>= 2.1) but 2.0.7.19981211-5 is installed
  alsautils: Depends: libc6 (>= 2.1) but 2.0.7.19981211-5 is installed
             Depends: libncurses4 (>= 4.2-3.1) but 4.2-3 is installed
  xamixer: Depends: libc6 (>= 2.1) but 2.0.7.19981211-5 is installed
           Depends: libgtk1.2 (>= 1.2.3-1) but 1.2.0-1 is installed
           Depends: xlib6g (>= 3.3.3.1-1) but 3.3.2.3a-11 is installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f.



-- System Information
Debian Release: 2.1
Kernel Version: Linux x2-496.mtl.Generation.NET 2.0.36 #2 Sun Jan 17 19:38:45 EST 1999 i686 unknown

Versions of the packages apt depends on:
hi  libc6           2.0.7.19981211 GNU C Library: shared libraries
hi  libstdc++2.9    2.91.60-5      The GNU stdc++ library (egcs version)