-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- We should remember that dpkg *does* allow a package to be installed when the *Dependencies* are not satisfied.
Example. In a pure bo system, the following may happen: # dpkg -i diff_2.7-15.deb [ This is the diff from hamm ] (Reading database ... 15191 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace diff 2.7-13 (using diff_2.7-15.deb) ... Unpacking replacement diff ... dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of diff: diff depends on libc6; however: Package libc6 is not installed. dpkg: error processing diff (--install): dependency problems - leaving unconfigured Errors were encountered while processing: diff Of course, diff is now unpacked, but it does not work at all. We have told our users that our packaging system is "robust". But the packaging system in this case allowed an essential package to become completely broken. I don't want to discuss here whether diff should or should not be essential [ Currently it is ]. I'm saying that there must be something really wrong if we consider that a given package is "essential" and at the same time we allow this to happen without using any --force-whatever option of dpkg. Thanks. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3ia Charset: latin1 iQCVAgUBNOwxjCqK7IlOjMLFAQGwEwP9HpoIk9jKUa96ndWKTWcPy7PtYc68vov4 3lsRdPqRMGurzzp7zpXvm1dspD/9ojbC6BR8Ld4jOnlyW/wJ0z1zLShGwyI/Pk5z gxgNwnNwz7x1zVO3HbMuLv5SkJy3LFaZbOm9Y25/jLgfxn82tt9Y5HRVr/d5vdw2 w2xeaR/ck74= =V5/0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
