Bug#89035: Removing one of a packages deps tries to update its other deps

[Marc Sherman <msherman@projectile.ca>]

Package: apt
Version: 0.3.19
Severity: normal

This is a strange dependancy following issue.  It may not be a bug --
if it isn't sorry for wasting your time.  I know apt-get in unstable
is very different from the testing version, so this may not even be
an issue any more.

I was looking to pare down my system (removing tex) and saw the 
following result from a simulated remove:

root@projectile:/home/msherman# apt-get -s remove tetex-bin tetex-lib tetex-base texinfo xlib6g
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  fetchmail libc6 libc6-dev t1lib1
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  blt* blt-common* blt-dev* blt8.0* emacs20* fetchmailconf* python-tk*
  task-tcltk-dev* tetex-base* tetex-bin* tetex-lib* texinfo* tk8.0* tk8.2*
  tk8.2-dev* tktable* tktable-dev* xlib6g*
The following packages will be upgraded
  fetchmail libc6 libc6-dev t1lib1
4 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 18 to remove and 98 not upgraded.

It seems strange that it wants to update fetchmail (and libc6, the
new version of which is required by the new fetchmail), simply because
I'm removing a different dependancy of fetchmailconf.  If I remove
fetchmailconf explicitly, it doesn't update anything:

root@projectile:/home/msherman# apt-get remove fetchmailconf
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  fetchmailconf*
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 103 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 131kB will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
(Reading database ... 29259 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing fetchmailconf ...

After doing so, repeating the simulated tex removal does not try to
upgrade fetchmail:

root@projectile:/home/msherman# apt-get -s remove tetex-bin tetex-lib tetex-base texinfo xlib6g
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  t1lib1
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  blt* blt-common* blt-dev* blt8.0* emacs20* python-tk* task-tcltk-dev*
  tetex-base* tetex-bin* tetex-lib* texinfo* tk8.0* tk8.2* tk8.2-dev* tktable*
  tktable-dev* xlib6g*
The following packages will be upgraded
  t1lib1
1 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 17 to remove and 101 not upgraded.

Here's my /etc/apt/apt.conf:
// Pre-configure all packages before they are installed.
// (Automatically added by debconf.)
DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs {"/usr/sbin/dpkg-preconfigure --apt";};

// Make -u default for apt-get
Apt::Get::Show-Upgraded "true";

// Always purge when removing by default
Apt::Get::Purge "true";


- Marc


-- System Information
Debian Release: testing/unstable
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux projectile 2.2.18 #1 Tue Feb 6 13:27:36 EST 2001 i586

Versions of packages apt depends on:
ii  libc6                        2.2.1-1     GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libstdc++2.10                1:2.95.2-14 The GNU stdc++ library