Debian Bug report logs - #4450
dselect package downgrades

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Barak Pearlmutter <bap@sloan.salk.edu>

To: submit@bugs.debian.org

Subject: dselect package downgrades

Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 20:39:26 -0700

Package: dpkg
Version: 1.2.14elf

dselect knows about upgrades (packages on the currently available
medium that are upgrades of currently installed version) and offers
the user the option of taking advantage of them.  But it doesn't have
much notion of packages that are available on the current medium but
are *less* current than the currently installed versions.  dselect
should make a point of preventing users from inadvertently downgrading
packages, and (in order to ease their nerves) should, when
appropriate, make the user aware that this functionality is present.

The current behavior, with lines like

 *== Req base     mount        2.5l-1      2.5j-1      Tools for mounting and m

listed as simply among

    --- Up to date installed packages ---

is scary.  It should be under something like

    --- Super-current installed packages ---

so the user knows that dselect won't go off downgrading things without
serious explicit user overrides of default behavior being applied.

Message #10 received at 4450@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: "Scott K. Ellis" <storm@anexis.com>

To: 4450@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: dselect package downgrades

Date: Tue, 08 Oct 1996 16:47:26 -0400

> dselect knows about upgrades (packages on the currently available
> medium that are upgrades of currently installed version) and offers
> the user the option of taking advantage of them.  But it doesn't have
> much notion of packages that are available on the current medium but
> are *less* current than the currently installed versions.  dselect
> should make a point of preventing users from inadvertently downgrading
> packages, and (in order to ease their nerves) should, when
> appropriate, make the user aware that this functionality is present.
> 
> The current behavior, with lines like
> 
>  *== Req base     mount        2.5l-1      2.5j-1      Tools for mounting and m
> 
> listed as simply among
> 
>     --- Up to date installed packages ---
> 
> is scary.  It should be under something like
> 
>     --- Super-current installed packages ---
> 
> so the user knows that dselect won't go off downgrading things without
> serious explicit user overrides of default behavior being applied.

The options that dselect invokes dpkg with ensures that the packages
will not be downgraded.  I'm pretty certain there isn't actually a way
to force dselect to do otherwise, I think you need to invoke dpkg
directly to do it.

Message #15 received at 4450-maintonly@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: remco@blaakmeer.student.utwente.nl (Remco Blaakmeer)

To: 4450-maintonly@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Old bugs need to be looked at

Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 12:22:52 +0100 (CET)

This is an automated message sent to all bugs older than one year.

This bug is very old. Please take a look at it and see if you can fix it.
If it has already been fixed, please close it.

If you have problems fixing it or if you don't have the time to fix it,
please ask the people on debian-devel@lists.debian.org for help, so that
at least the oldest bugs can be solved before Debian 2.0 is released.

Remco Blaakmeer

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