Bug#78371: conflict error does not check for replaces

[Goswin Brederlow <goswin.brederlow@student.uni-tuebingen.de>]

Josip Rodin <joy@cibalia.gkvk.hr> writes:

> On Sat, Dec 02, 2000 at 10:16:42AM +0100, Christian Kurz wrote:
> > > Sorry, but the following packages have unmet dependencies:
> > >   gnupg: Conflicts: gpg-rsa
> > > E: Sorry, broken packages
> > 
> > > But gnupgp replaces gpg-rsa, so the nicest thing would be to say:
> > > "Not installing gpg-rsa: gnupg replaces gpg-rsa" and install gnupgp.
> > 
> > |Replaces: gpg-rsa, gpg-rsaref
> > |Provides: gpg-rsa, gpg-rsaref
> > |Conflicts: gpg-rsa, gpg-rsaref
> > 
> > And if I'm not mistaken Conflicts are more important then Replaces or
> > Provides. So, apt does the right thing and tells you that it conflicts
> > with gpg-rsa. If gnupg really replaces some version of rsa then this
> > control-file is in my opinion wrong, because a package can't replace and
> > conflict with some other package. So, I think either the control-file
> > should provide some version numbers in the Conflicts line or the whole
> > line should be removed.
> 
> When a package A both conflicts and replaces package B, package B needs to
> be removed prior to installing package A. You might want to read the
> packaging manual, section "8.3 Alternative binary packages - Conflicts and
> Replaces".
> 
> However, in this case that can't be done because APT has been told
> explicitely to install both packages. The bug here is that gpg-rsa is still
> available for installation -- it should be removed from the archive.
> I believe a bug to that effect has already been filed.

Yes, of cause, a different user input circumvents the problem and
removing the ols package also solves it (by giving an error that the
package is non existant).


But the situation can happen with many packages and the package will
allways be in potato.

It would be nice from apt-get to recognise that the extra package
given is just outdated and should be ignored, to tell the user this
with a warning and to go ahead and to go ahead not installing the old
but any remaining packages.

MfG
        Goswin