Bug#51910: apt: 'some packages could not be installed' on *removal*?
Package: apt
Version: 0.3.13
As part of a partial upgrade of my machine from more-or-less stable
toward unstable, I installed a bunch of networking stuff, including
the new netstd 'legacy package' plus others.
This resulted in apt installing midentd for me. To see why it had
done this, I tried a '--no-act remove', which usually conveniently
lists all the packages that require the one you're trying to remove.
However, I got the following bizarre error:
===begin===
mnementh# apt-get --no-act remove midentd
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:
netdiag: Depends: netstd but it is not installed
E: Sorry, broken packages
mnementh# dpkg -s netdiag
Package: netdiag
Status: install ok installed
Installed-Size: 267
Maintainer: Philip Hands <phil@hands.com>
Version: 0.6-3.2
Depends: libc6, libncurses4, netbase, netstd
Description: Net-Diagnostics (trafshow,strobe,netwatch,statnet,tcpspray)
[snip]
mnementh# dpkg -s netstd
Package: netstd
Status: install ok installed
Priority: standard
Section: net
Installed-Size: 52
Maintainer: Herbert Xu <herbert@debian.org>
Version: 3.07-16
Depends: bootpc, ftp, rsh-client, rusers, tftp, ruptime, fping, rdist, traceroute, rwhod
, rwho, finger, rwall, icmpinfo, rdate, ftp-server | ftpd, midentd | oidentd | pidentd,
cfingerd | efingerd | ffingerd | xfingerd | fingerd
Suggests: telnet, telnetd, rsh-server, bootparamd, routed, bootp, rusersd, tftpd, wdsetu
p, rwalld
Description: Legacy package that you should remove.
This package exists only to provide smooth upgrades. Please remove it.
===endit===
(1) why is apt complaining about being unable to install things? I'm trying
to *remove* packages, not install anything...
(2) why does it think netstd isn't installed, when dpkg -s says it is?
(3) why didn't it complain when doing the preceding
"apt-get install traceroute netstd bison telnetd" if it thought the dependencies
were mangled?
Interestingly, if you ask apt to remove netstd, it allows you:
===begin===
mnementh# apt-get --no-act remove netstd
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
netdiag
The following packages will be REMOVED:
netstd
1 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 202 not upgraded.
Inst netdiag
Remv netstd
Conf netdiag
===endit===
I'll leave my machine in its current state for the moment so you can request
config files or other information; I can't do this indefinitely, though :->
Peter Maydell
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