On Mon, 25 Jul 2016 13:56:58 -0700 Kyanos <someanon...@gmail.com> wrote:
Package: synaptic
Version: 0.83+b1
Severity: minor
Dear Maintainer,
If I mark a package for complete removal, I cannot change the mark
directly to simple removal.
Steps to reproduce:
1. Select a package.
2. Mark the package for complete removal.[1]
3. Mark the package for removal.[1]
[1] This can be done by either right-clicking and selecting the
appropriate option, going to the Package menu and selecting the option,
or using a keyboard shortcut. Any of these will yield the same result.
Actual result:
The package is still marked for complete removal. There is still a
yellow cross on the package mark, and the summary that is shown after
clicking "Apply" lists the package under "To be completely removed
(including configuration files)".
Expected result:
The package should be marked for removal. There should be a red cross on
the package mark, and the summary that is shown after clicking "Apply"
should list the package under "To be removed"
I'm revisiting this old bug report of mine and I confirm that this still
occurs in the latest version of Synaptic.
Upon further investigation, I believe this can actually be traced to APT
itself, or more specifically libapt-pkg. Synaptic uses the pkgDepCache
class from libapt-pkg to handle these states, and the
pkgDepCache::MarkDelete method is called to mark a package for removal
or complete removal.
In the implementation of that method (source file apt-pkg/depcache.cc),
there is a particular check that suggests a deliberate design decision
to disallow moving from purging (complete removal) to simple removal but
allow moving in the other direction:
// Check that it is not already marked for delete
if ((P.Mode == ModeDelete || P.InstallVer == 0) &&
(Pkg.Purge() == true || rPurge == false))
return true;
I've CC'ed the APT team on this e-mail to get their input. If there are
good reasons for this decision then I am happy to have this bug closed
as "won't fix." (I don't think there is a compelling reason for Synaptic
to work around this design decision in APT.)
Kyanos
