[Linux-disciples] Telling apt-get not to keep packages back

[Stephen R Laniel]

On Mon, May 30, 2005 at 05:45:56PM -0400, Adam Rosi-Kessel wrote:
> One obvious reason would be if you actually 'held' the package--you
> should dpkg --get-selections | grep packagename to make sure it's not
> set as 'held'.

Yeah, I actually don't have any packages listed as 'held.'

> Sometimes I've noticed packages get held when upgrading requires some
> substitution of some other package--say libfoo0 needs to be replaced
> with libfoo1 (not just a different Debian version, but a different
> package)--conceivable the "extra" package that appears to be holding
> back the upgrade requires that sort of replacement and thus it is held.

That's possible; I definitely did notice this happening a
few times.

Actually, there's a question I was looking for the right
time to ask: can't apt-get (or aptitude) be a little
friendlier when one package replaces another package? In
your example above, apt-get would report something like

The following package will be REMOVED:
	libfoo0
The following NEW package will be installed:
	libfoo1

Ordinarily the names are close enough that you can look at
both and realize that the one obsoletes the other. But if
you don't look closely, or if the package names aren't all
that close, this can look very frightening -- even though
it's not really doing anything major. Wouldn't it be better
if the UI said, "The package libfoo0 is now obsolete, and
has been replaced by libfoo1"?

I'll file a wishlist bug on that just as soon as someone
tells me that I'm not a fool for thinking it.

-- 
Stephen R. Laniel
steve at laniels.org
+(617) 308-5571
http://laniels.org/
PGP key: http://laniels.org/slaniel.key
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