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Bug#66508: apt: apt-get leaves bad information in /var/lib/dpkg/available



Package: apt
Version: 0.3.19
Severity: important

I have the following in my /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://security.debian.org/ potato updates/main
deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian frozen main
deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian frozen main
deb http://nonus.debian.org/debian-non-US frozen non-US/main


At one point, I did have references to contrib, but not any more.

I think that an `apt-get update', given that sources.list, should remove any
references to packages that aren't in `main' from /var/lib/dpkg/available.

In other words, I think that /var/lib/dpkg/available should only contain
those packages which are requested by branches in sources.list, and it
should stay in sync as sources.list changes.

This is particularly important on the issue of whether a user wishes to see
non-free packages.  I personally don't, and that's why I removed `contrib'.
Yet, I see in /var/lib/dpkg/available:

Package: staroffice3
Priority: optional
Section: contrib/editors
[...]

And, when I run dpkg -l '*staroff*', I see:
pn  staroffice3    <none>         (no description available)


Fortunately, 
# apt-get install staroffice3

fails with:

E: Package staroffice3 has no installation candidate


But, I think it'd be better if such packages weren't advertised at all, as
long as references thereto aren't in sources.list.

That's not to mention the fact that it is confusing to a user---they see it
in the available file, they see it when they run `dpkg -l', yet the can't
seem to install it.




-- System Information
Debian Release: potato
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux atheist 2.2.14 #8 Tue Jan 11 21:25:15 EST 2000 i586

Versions of packages apt depends on:
ii  libc6                         2.1.3-10   GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libstdc++2.10                 1:2.95.2-4 The GNU stdc++ library            

-- 
Bradley M. Kuhn  -  http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn

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