Bug#237470: state of #237470
affects 237470 localepurge
thanks
* David Kalnischkies <kalnischkies+debian@gmail.com>, 2010-11-06, 13:24:
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.
Interesting. That would suggest you can trigger this bug^Wissue by
trying to reinstall together any 2 essential packages. But this is not
the case: I can reinstall coreutils+debianutils (whereas the original
bug reporter couldn't do that in 2004):
# apt-get install --reinstall coreutils debianutils
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 8 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/4658 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
(Reading database ... 131596 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace coreutils 8.5-1 (using .../coreutils_8.5-1_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement coreutils ...
Processing triggers for install-info ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Setting up coreutils (8.5-1) ...
(Reading database ... 131596 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace debianutils 3.4.1 (using .../debianutils_3.4.1_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement debianutils ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Setting up debianutils (3.4.1) ...
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…
I agree with your reasoning. I won't object to tagging this bug +wontfix
or closing it entirely.
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.
FYI, I spotted this behaviour when trying to recover files deleted by
localepurge, using the command recommended in its README.Debian:
apt-get --reinstall install $(dpkg -S LC_MESSAGES | cut -d: -f1 | tr ', ' '\n' | sort -u)
--
Jakub Wilk
Reply to: