Bug#71049: apt/dselect ignores hold on forced package with missing dependency
Package: apt
Version: 0.3.19
Apt (or possibly dselect) won't respect a hold on a package that
depends on a non-existent package (and that was installed using
--force-depends).
Here's the case I'm encountering:
1. I install hamm's splay_0.8.2-1.deb using --force-depends (because
potato doesn't have package qt1g; it is named differently in potato):
dpkg --install --force-depends ...splay_0.8.2-1.deb
2. I go into dselect, using the apt method, and dselect lists package
splay as expected:
...
Updated Optional packages in section sound
*** Opt sound splay 0.8.2-1 0.8.2-10 Sound player for MPEG-1,2 layer 1,2,3
...
3. I type "=" to hold splay. Dselect warns that splay depends on qt1g,
but that qt1g is not available. That warning is fine. (I knew that;
that's why I installed the old splay using --force-depends.)
4. I set everything else to hold.
5. I proceed with the Install step, expecting dselect/apt to install
nothing (since everything is on hold).
However, the apt method tries to upgrade splay:
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following held packages will be changed:
splay
1 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/55.2kB of archives. After unpacking 197kB will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
The fact that apt and dselect don't abide by the hold status would seem to
be a bug. Is it?
(Yes, I know I'm not using things the most smoothly, not doing whatever
I should to tell apt to pretend that qt1g is installed or whatever.
However, it seems that apt should still respect a command to hold a
package.)
Daniel
--
Daniel Barclay
dsb@smart.net
(Hmm. A little worrisome: http://www.junkbusters.com/cgi-bin/privacy
http://www.anonymizer.com/snoop.cgi )
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