Bug#46308: apt: vague message about conflicts/depends

[Josip Rodin <jrodin@public.srce.hr>]

Package: apt

Hi,

I have wmaker 0.60.0-4 installed, and have now tried to install slink's
version of wmsound. Here's what APT said:

# apt-get install wmsound
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.

Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that
the package is simply not installable and a bug report against
that package should be filed.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

Sorry, but the following packages have unmet dependencies:
  wmsound: Depends: wmaker (>= 0.20.2-2) but it is not installed
E: Sorry, broken packages

Yeah, right. But, dpkg explained it:

# dpkg -i wmsound_0.7.5-4.deb
dpkg: regarding wmsound_0.7.5-4.deb containing wmsound:
 wmaker conflicts with wmsound (<= 0.9.3-1)
  wmsound (version 0.7.5-4) is to be installed.
dpkg: error processing wmsound_0.7.5-4.deb (--install):
 conflicting packages - not installing wmsound
Errors were encountered while processing:
 wmsound_0.7.5-4.deb

Please fix APT to display correct explanation of the conflict. TIA!

-- 
enJoy -*/\*- don't even try to pronounce my first name