Bug#190558: openoffice.org: circular dependencies between openoffice.org and openoffice.org-bin
On Thu, Apr 24, 2003 at 04:11:23PM +0200, Bernhard R. Link wrote:
> * Henning Glawe <glaweh@physik.fu-berlin.de> [030424 15:20]:
> > When using FAI or a similar autoinstaller, many packages may be left
> > unconfigure because of circular dependencies between openoffice.org
> > packages. apt-get is called with a _long_ list of packages to install,
> > which are partly fet unconfigured if one of them fails to configure.
>
> I do not see why circular dependencies should be a problem. An
> dpkg --configure -a or a apt-get -f install should cause anything to
> be configured, if any part failed. If anything fails to configure it
> is this packages problem.
but the problem is with non-interactive installs... I don't want to run
from machine to machine because of a single error... FAI depends on a
working apt and/or set of package to complete its task.
as rene posted this is an apt problem...
> > besides such circular dependencies violate debian policy:
> > Depends: blah
> > in blubb means package blah has to be configured before configuration
> > of blubb which is quite impossible if blah depends on blubb, though work
> > sometimes; in these cases, dpkgs behaviour get chaotic: sometimes it
> > works, sometimes not...
>
> Are you sure, you are not confusing dependencies and pre-dependencies?
> (to quote policy 2.3.4:
> Sometimes, a package requires another package to be installed *and*
> configured before it can be installed. In this case, you must specify
> a Pre-Depends entry for the package.
> )
According to Policy 7.2:
Depends
This declares an absolute dependency. A package will not be configured
unless all of the packages listed in its Depends field have been
correctly configured.
IMHO this _forbids_ circular dependencies, for them it is impossible to
fullfill this condition.
> Circular dependencies are quite a normal way to specifiy things to be
> installed together. Though any part should be able to configure before
> the other is configured. (This is true for any dependency and not only
> circular ones.)
>
> Could you elaborate what goes wrong a bit more, so one can see what
> is causing problems?
the comment given by rene engelhard explains the problem pretty good.
but according to 7.2 circular dependencies are forbidden, so you could
say: "circular dependencies work in most cases"...
--
c u
henning
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