> > This feature would, I fear, strain the dpkg system even more. I'm > > starting to see occasional failures under dselect/apt/dpkg that > > fortunately, for now, are transient (i.e. rerun dselect/apt and the > > failure doesn't reoccur). It suggests to me that we are pushing our > > package management software beyond its capability. > > I have put off continuning client changeover from slackware to > debian due to these same concerns. Not to mention the condition of > the current slink.
I do not know exactly which failures are these... but I notice most of the problems with packages in the list are because people aren't using the stable (hamm) version. Sure you can use unstable (potato) or frozen (slink). But they are not intended for general use, so in production or end-use environments you shouldn't be using slink anyway. If you use the distributions as they are intended, the stable will be one of the best (more reliable, robust) Linux systems available! I would suggest that, as apt is still in development, these failures in non-stable environments should be expected. But based on the history of Debian, they will surely have been fixed when slink replaces hamm as the stable distribution. Leandro Guimaraens Faria Corcete Dutra Amdocs Brasil Ltda