Bug#212203: apt: Unhelpful diagnostic from apt-get

[Matt Zimmerman <mdz@debian.org>]

retitle 212203 [apt-get] More useful error message for "...no available version, but exists in the database..."
thanks

On Mon, Sep 22, 2003 at 02:47:38PM +0100, Clive Jones wrote:

> # apt-get install stunnel
> Reading Package Lists... Done
> Building Dependency Tree... Done
> Package stunnel has no available version, but exists in the database.
> This typically means that the package was mentioned in a dependency and
> never uploaded, has been obsoleted or is not available with the contents
> of sources.list
> E: Package stunnel has no installation candidate
> 
> I feel this message is unuseful: people who understand what's gone
> wrong can solve the problem without it, and people who don't
> understand aren't helped by it.
> 
> Particularly, the phrases "has no available version, but exists" and
> "not available with the contents of sources.list" are both quite
> opaque in their meaning.
> 
> Perhaps some form of words saying that the package cannot be found in
> any of the places listed in /etc/apt/sources.list , and pointing at
> the documentation concerning how to choose new things to put there,
> would be more helpful?

Perhaps you could suggest complete replacement text?  It's difficult to tell
what you think would be better.  You seem to have suggested these two
changes:

- say /etc/apt/sources.list rather than sources.list (?)

- include a reference to the documentation

I don't think that either of these would clarify the message.  I think it
should be simplified rather than extended.

The situation that this message attempts to describe is essentially "I can't
find this package, but there are some references to it".  It is useful to
distinguish this situation from "I can't find this package at all", because
it provides a hint that the package may actually exist, but may not be
available to the user at the present time, or with their current
configuration.  It should suggest how they might go about finding it, if it
does in fact exist.

Specifically, the message should explain concisely what the situation is,
and suggest these possible explanations:

1. The package existed previously, but is obsolete.

2. The package will exist, but has not been uploaded yet (this is really
   only possible in unstable, and may not need to be mentioned)

3. The package exists, but you need to add a new source to sources.list in
   order to find it

-- 
 - mdz