Bug#169241: apt, gawk and mawk

[Daniel Schepler <schepler@math.berkeley.edu>]

Matt Zimmerman <mdz@debian.org> writes:

> tags 169241 unreproducible
> thanks
>
> This works fine for me:
>
> mizar:[~] sudo apt-get install gawk mawk-
> Reading Package Lists... Done
> Building Dependency Tree... Done
> gawk is already the newest version.
> The following packages will be REMOVED:
>   mawk
> 0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 15 not upgraded.
> Need to get 0B of archives.
> After unpacking 225kB disk space will be freed.
> Do you want to continue? [Y/n] 
> Reading changelogs... Done
> (Reading database ... 95784 files and directories currently installed.)
> Removing mawk ...
>
> So there doesn't seem to be enough information in this bug to reproduce the
> problem.  Could you provide an example scenario (or perhaps a reference to
> the original bug report which was deleted)?

I just managed to reproduce this in a pbuilder chroot: after "pbuilder
login" and "apt-get install grep-dctrl", I did:

frobnitz:/# grep-dctrl -v -F Package original-awk /var/lib/apt/lists/http.us.debian.org_debian_dists_sid_main_binary-i386_Packages >/tmp/Packages-new
frobnitz:/# mv /tmp/Packages-new /var/lib/apt/lists/http.us.debian.org_debian_dists_sid_main_binary-i386_Packages
frobnitz:/# apt-get install gawk mawk-
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  mawk
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  gawk
WARNING: The following essential packages will be removed
This should NOT be done unless you know exactly what you are doing!
  mawk (due to base-files)
0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 862kB of archives.
After unpacking 1626kB of additional disk space will be used.
You are about to do something potentially harmful
To continue type in the phrase 'Yes, do as I say!'
 ?]
Abort.

This might be related to the bug involving sysv-rc and file-rc (which
I can't seem to find at the moment).
-- 
Daniel Schepler              "Please don't disillusion me.  I
schepler@math.berkeley.edu    haven't had breakfast yet."
                                 -- Orson Scott Card