Bug#359989: apt: [apt-get source] fails if dpkg-source is not installed

[Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@cante.net>]

Package: apt
Version: 0.6.43.3
Severity: normal

Note, this bug report is from Debian STABLE 3.1 (*), but send from
Debian/unstable, because the machine did not have an email connection.

SYMPTOMS

    test:/tmp# apt-get source jwm
    Reading Package Lists... Done
    Building Dependency Tree... Done
    Need to get 331kB of source archives.
    Get:1 http://debian.cante.net stable/main jwm 1.1-1 (dsc) [337B]
    Get:2 http://debian.cante.net stable/main jwm 1.1-1 (tar) [331kB]
    Fetched 331kB in 0s (397kB/s)
    sh: dpkg-source: not found
    Unpack command 'dpkg-source -x jwm_1.1-1.dsc' failed.
    E: Child process failed

SUGGESTION

It would be better if apt checked the existence of dpkg-source before
attempting download and notify user to install dpkg-dev package.

Catching this eerror condition at a very early state would be 
preferrable that at the end.

-- Package-specific info:

-- (no /etc/apt/preferences present) --


-- /etc/apt/sources.list --


-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.15-1-686
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ISO-8859-1) (ignored: LC_ALL set to en_US)

Versions of packages apt depends on:
ii  libc6                         2.3.6-4    GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libgcc1                       1:4.0.3-1  GCC support library
ii  libstdc++6                    4.0.3-1    The GNU Standard C++ Library v3

Versions of packages apt recommends:
pn  debian-archive-keyring        <none>     (no description available)

-- no debconf information