Bug#673193: apt-get: should remove foreign arch packages even if arch suffix is missing

[Carsten Hey <carsten@debian.org>]

Package: apt
Version: 0.9.3
Severity: wishlist

apt-get should remove foreign arch packages even if arch suffix is
missing.

I know that you disagree, but documenting unintuitive behaviour in the
BTS in a good thing and this bug report explains why your reasoning is
wrong.

  # dpkg --print-architecture
  amd64
  # dpkg -l sc | grep ' sc' | tr -s ' '
  ii sc 7.16-3 Text-based spreadsheet with VI-like keybindings
  # apt-get remove sc
  ...
  Package 'sc' is not installed, so not removed. Did you mean 'sc:i386'?
  0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
  # dpkg -s sc | grep Arch
  Architecture: i386

Actually there are two bugs shown above.  One is that dpkg -l omits
important information.

The other is that apt-get only removes foreign packages if either the
arch suffix is added or if the package is not available on the native
architecture.  The reasoning by apt's maintainers is that in the above
case sc:i386 must explicitly have been installed, which is obviously
wrong since that a packages is available on one architecture now does
not mean that it has been available on this architecture in the past and
apt installs foreign packages if the architecture suffix is not added
and the package does not exist on the native architecture.

Carsten