Bug#218605: apt: misleading dependency problem message
Package: apt
Version: 0.5.14
Severity: normal
If, on system with the following installed, all current from unstable:
apt 0.5.14
perl 5.8.1-4
perl-modules 5.8.1-4 (provides libtile-temp-perl)
autoconf 2.57-11
I try to install autoconf2.13 from woody, I see the following output
$ sudo apt-get install autoconf2.13/stable
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Selected version 2.13-43 (Debian:3.0r1a/stable) for autoconf2.13
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that
the package is simply not installable and a bug report against
that package should be filed.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
autoconf2.13: Depends: autoconf (>= 2.50) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: perl but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libfile-temp-perl
E: Broken packages
$
The message from apt about unmet dependencies is grossly misleading;
I do have all of autoconf (>=2.50), perl and libfile-temp-perl.
The actual reason for the refusal seems to be that autoconf 2.57-11
declares a conflict against autoconf2.13 (<<2.13-47). But the only way
I found that out was by knowing in advance know that there is some
intimate interaction between the maintainer script of the two
autoconfs, so they may do something like that.
(And why would one want to do exactly this? One probably wouldn't, but
I originallty came across the problem when I tried to selectively
upgrade autoconf to unstable on a woody box and apt-get insisted on
removing autoconf2.13 without giving any good explanation why).
-- Package-specific info:
-- apt-config dump --
APT "";
APT::Architecture "i386";
APT::Build-Essential "";
APT::Build-Essential:: "build-essential";
Dir "/";
Dir::State "var/lib/apt/";
Dir::State::lists "lists/";
Dir::State::cdroms "cdroms.list";
Dir::State::userstatus "status.user";
Dir::State::status "/var/lib/dpkg/status";
Dir::Cache "var/cache/apt/";
Dir::Cache::archives "archives/";
Dir::Cache::srcpkgcache "srcpkgcache.bin";
Dir::Cache::pkgcache "pkgcache.bin";
Dir::Etc "etc/apt/";
Dir::Etc::sourcelist "sources.list";
Dir::Etc::vendorlist "vendors.list";
Dir::Etc::vendorparts "vendors.list.d";
Dir::Etc::main "apt.conf";
Dir::Etc::parts "apt.conf.d";
Dir::Etc::preferences "preferences";
Dir::Bin "";
Dir::Bin::methods "/usr/lib/apt/methods";
Dir::Bin::dpkg "/usr/bin/dpkg";
DPkg "";
DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs "";
DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs:: "/usr/sbin/dpkg-preconfigure --apt || true";
-- (no /etc/apt/preferences present) --
-- /etc/apt/sources.list --
# deb ftp://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian stable contrib main
# deb-src ftp://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian stable main
# deb ftp://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian-non-US stable non-US/main non-US/contrib
# deb-src ftp://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian-non-US stable non-US/main
deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian stable main
deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian unstable contrib main
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian unstable main
deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable non-US/main non-US/contrib
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable non-US/main
deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates contrib main
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main
deb ftp://ftp.diku.dk/diku/users/jpsecher/debian sarge main non-free contrib
deb-src ftp://ftp.diku.dk/diku/users/jpsecher/debian sarge main non-free contrib
-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux haimon 2.4.18 #1 Wed Oct 8 10:00:27 CEST 2003 i686
Locale: LANG=en_GB, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.iso88591
Versions of packages apt depends on:
ii libc6 2.3.2-9 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii libgcc1 1:3.3.2-1 GCC support library
ii libstdc++5 1:3.3.2-1 The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
-- no debconf information
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