Bug#201197: acknowledged by developer (Re: Bug#201197: plus sign doesn't override conflicts)
On Tue, 29 Jul 2003, Niall Young wrote:
> > How many times, and when, did you mail me?
>
> Twice:
> Wed, 16 Jul 2003 09:51:57 +0800
> Wed, 23 Jul 2003 10:19:25 +0800
again, that's too soon, people are busy(I'm even more busy lately then usual,
due to an apartment move, and no connection at the new place).
> > A few days waiting is not something you should be complaining about.
>
> I'm not complaining Adam, I was trying to reach other apt developers as
> you were obviously unavailable. There's a difference. The original bug
> was lodged Mon, 14 Jul 2003 16:14:27 +0800
It sure seemed that way, as you said you mailed *me*, not others. I tend to
look at my main mailbox once a week.
> > Um, are you dense?
>
> No, but you're damn rude. Can you please explain to me what the man
> page is actually suggesting then?
Hardly rude. I have little patience for those who can't understand what they
paste, esp. when they seem to use it to contradict themselves.
> > Apt is doing exactly what you just described. There was no magical
> > decision here. You told apt to install sendmail. A doesn't change
> > apt's decision, because apt didn't decide to install sendmail; you did.
> Have you read the man page? The "magical decision" is to remove qmail
> as it conflicts with sendmail i.e. *conflict resolution*:
It's not a magical decision. You told apt to install sendmail. That's
straight forward, nothing magical. To install sendmail, apt has to remove
those packages that directly configure it. It does this, by removing qmail.
Again, nothing magical. It only gets 'magical' when the dependency chains get
longer.
>
> "Similarly a plus sign can be used to designate a package to install. These
> latter features may be used to override decisions made by apt-get's
> conflict resolution system."
>
> Can you please explain what this last sentence means, if not to override
> qmail being removed?
You're not overriding apt's non-magical decision to remove qmail. You're not
overriding anything. Placing the + on sendmail doesn't modify apt's decision,
as it didn't decide to install sendmail; you did, by asking it to.
install foo
install foo+
remove qmail foo+
Those lines all do the same thing. However:
remove qmail
will cause apt to remove a lot of packages(all those that depend on
mail-transport-agent). If you use the third line from the above, then you
have overridden apt's magical decision to remove all the other packages, and
thereby you'll switch mtas.
Reply to: