Bug#237470: state of #237470
On Sat, Nov 6, 2010 at 01:05, Jakub Wilk <jwilk@debian.org> wrote:
> * Eugene V. Lyubimkin <jackyf.devel@gmail.com>, 2008-10-26, 15:28:
>>
>> Hello Euan, can you reproduce bug with any packages in Lenny and apt in
>> Lenny?
>> Otherwise I am going to close it.
>
> I can reproduce the bug in lenny, squeeze and sid by trying to reinstall
> dpkg and coreutils:
The question is: Is it really a bug?
Both, dpkg and coreutils are Essential: yes so they pre-depend implicit
on each other. As the option --reinstall is used we can assume that the
current installed package is broken¹ in a way that it doesn't provide the
functionality it should and is better handled as not installed at all -
So, which one to install at first if both form a dependency-loop?
In that case maybe try to install coreutils while praying to $deity that
its maintainerscripts doesn't depend on one of the tools provided by dpkg
which is currently broken -- beside that we hope that the used tools from
dpkg doesn't need coreutils to work…
A lot of praying and hoping involved for a task which is proposed to be
performed automatically by APT - at least for my taste…
Best regards
David Kalnischkies
¹ The --reinstall flag doesn't do any magic, it just reinstalls the package,
it doesn't purge, doesn't reset the configuration or anything else,
so the only reason a user could have to ask for a reinstall is that he e.g.
accidentally removed or overwrote some of the files included in this
package.
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