Bug#708831: upgrade-reports: [sid->sid] left system barely unusable (manually fixed with dpkg --install)

[Matthias Klose <doko@debian.org>]

Control: reassign -1 python2.7-minimal

Am 19.05.2013 17:15, schrieb David Kalnischkies:
> Hi,
> 
> The dpkg/status file before the upgrade could be helpful for reproducing.
> You can (hopefully) find it in /var/backup/
> 
> Helpful config options (I case someone wants to try)
> -o dir::state::status=./dpkg/status
> -o debug::pkgdpkgpm=true  # displays dpkg calls rather than executing them
> -o debug::pkgorderlist=true # first stage order choices
> -o debug::pkgpackagemanager=true # second (and final) stage order choices
> 
> On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 3:50 PM, Aurelien Jarno <aurelien@aurel32.net> wrote:
>>> /usr/bin/python: /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libc.so.6: version
>>> `GLIBC_2.15' not found (required by /usr/bin/python)
>>> /usr/bin/python: /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libc.so.6: version
>>> `GLIBC_2.16' not found (required by /usr/bin/python)
>>> dpkg: warning: subprocess old pre-removal script returned error exit
>>> status 1
> 
> While APT usually avoids it, its actually fine to have dependencies not
> satisfied for half-installed packages and prerm scripts do only give you
> the guarantee that your dependencies will be at least half-installed.

well, only seen on i386, and apparently libc6-i686 is installed. Now why aren't
the new libc6 packages unpacked first? I would assume to see more reports for
this upgrade path.

> In the case of debconf, we don't even have a dependency on python,
> so its even more fine to choose this order for unpack.
> 
> 
> I haven't had the time yet to debug why APT is choosing this route
> (and as said, dpkg/status file would help), but while this might not be
> ideal its not a bug in APT.
> 
> This smells more like a bug in dh_python2 which adds this prerm code which
> assumes that pyclean can be executed even if it isn't configured (aka that
> it behaves like an essential application), but I am not in the mood for
> bug-ping-pong so just CC'ed python maintainers for now, so they can have a
> look and comment on it while we will see whats up with APT to decide on
> this route (did I mention that a dpkg/status file would help? ;) ).

so for now, I'm adding the libc6 dependency as a pre-dependency in
python2.7-minimal, like perl-base is doing.

  Matthias