On Mon, May 24, 2004 at 10:46:47AM +0100, Colin Watson wrote: > Desired state of packages should never have been in /var/lib/dpkg/status > in the first place. (And yes, I've had this discussion with the original > author, who agreed ...)
The problem isn't that "desired states" are kept in the status file, the problem is that aptitude ignores the status file. The statuses are THERE, saying that they shouldn't be doesn't make them go away. Or are you saying that dpkg is what's broken? Let's see... dpkg is base/required, aptitude is admin/optional. If aptitude's behavior were the correct one, wouldn't those be reversed? The package description for dpkg says: Description: Package maintenance system for Debian This package contains the programs which handle the installation and removal of packages on your system. That's not what aptitude's says. Aptitude's says "apt frontend". Sounds even more like dpkg is the standard, and aptitude is just supposed to be a front-end to that standard. Aptitude's description also says, in part: "...dselect-like persistence of user actions..." except it doesn't follow what dselect does. Dselect, of course, is also base/required. Is there any other management tool in base/required? Synaptic isn't. Gnome-apt isn't. Are there others? Those are the ones that depend on libapt-pkg-libc6. Aptitude's brokenness would *almost* be tolerable if it at least behaved consistently betweeen the two interfaces it supports. I'd love to hear an explanation of why the same tool behaves differently on such a fundamental point depending on whether you're using the command-line vs the menu-driven interface. It's certainly been the subject of several bug reports without any concrete resolution other than "gee, it's too hard". Finally... what aptitude does or doesn't do would be a non-issue if everyone didn't try so hard to sell it as the replacement for every other package management tool out there. All of us Debianites love to tell people that apt-get is just something that was coded as a demonstration tool... but that's what everyone sees and that's what we're known for. The inconsistency between the tools is more than a little absurd. -- Marc Wilson | Please remain calm, it's no use both of us being [EMAIL PROTECTED] | hysterical at the same time. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
