hi folks, starting with some frustration about error messages from using apt I started some analysis on the Debian Package infos.
As you know Debian has a detailed system to reference packages on the relation of "depend", "recommend, "conflict" and others. About this references I have two things to discuss: I. Sometimes it occures a package is referenced by this system of references but in fact it doesn't exist. I compiled the data of the "Packages" files in a sqlite database with some tables so I can run some comfortable queries. So I asked which packages are referenced by the Debian dependency system but does not exist. I got the following astonishing results: conflicts 5251 depends 5277 enhances 52 provides 4142 recommends 763 replaces 3921 suggests 2092 What do you think about these results? I think there has to be a process to avoid these errors and wrong infos. II. Sometimes it occures that a package lists a 'conflict', but the corresponding package does not. I would like to see a 'conflict' list on both packages. As I understand, the info files are maintained individually by the package maintainers. May be a process can be established to harmonize the entries in the individually package info files. If i.e. a 'conlict' has been named it shoul appear in the corresponding package info file. greetings michael examples: Package: abuse ... Conflicts: abuse-sdl (<< 0.6.1-2) a package 'abuse-sdl' does not exist Package: abiword-common ... Recommends: abiword-help, aspell-en | aspell-dictionary Package: auctex ... Replaces: preview-latex a package 'preview-latex' does not exist Package: muttprint ... Enhances: mail-reader, news-reader a package 'news-reader' does not exist
