Bug#544481: diff should not be an essential package
On 2009-09-01 10:50:37 +0200, Santiago Vila wrote:
> Note to Vincent: Please do not overinflate bug severities.
I thought that the problem was more serious that it was: inconsistent
database (since this is what it really appears to be). If the warning
message were more detailed, one would not need to guess anything.
> Clearly, apt-get currently considers a package essential as far as
> there is *some* essential package with that name available in any of
> the sources.list lines.
>
> As a result, you can't currently remove the dummy diff package, but
> what is the real harm of not being able to remove a dummy package?
> That's a bug like any other, not a critical one.
>
> Another way of looking at that would be this one:
>
> The description of diff now says that "you can remove it after
> upgrading to squeeze". The dummy diff package is not in testing yet,
> so this is naturally to be read by lenny users who upgrade to squeeze
> once the new diff and diffutils packages reach testing.
Would this make any difference? IMHO there would be the same problem
even for stable, for users who have both lenny (where diff is
essential) and squeeze in their source.
> However, I would not consider that you have "upgraded to squeeze" if
> you still keep lenny lines in your sources.list.
AFAIK, users are allowed to just add squeeze lines and keep lenny
lines in their sources.list. At least apt-get wouldn't complain,
would it?
> The diff package is dummy for the benefit of people who do not want
> any leftover of lenny in the system when they upgrade to squeeze.
>
> So, if you don't want any leftover of lenny, consider removing lenny
> from your sources.list.
Packages (whether in unstable or stable) gets sometimes broken or
removed, so that keeping lenny may be useful (well, at least a short
time after an upgrade, which is probably no longer the case).
--
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.org> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.org/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <http://www.vinc17.org/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Arénaire project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)
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