On Tue, 10 Jul 2018 12:55:26 +0200 sgarrulo <sgarr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello everyone! > I had an installation of debian stable (stretch) which was fully > upgraded something like a couple of months ago. Then I passed it to > testing (buster). > > Now I'm facing this situation: > * 5031 installed packages > * 1292 upgradable packages > > If I do a normal upgrade, 676 packages are to be upgraded, but only > the gtk/qt unrelated ones (for example, apache2-doc but none of the > apache2 *real* packages, or vim-addon-manager and vim-doc but none of > the vim *real* packages, and so on) > > And if I try to upgrade, let's say, vim-* packages, it wants to > remove a ton of seemingly unrelated packages, like calibre, > evolution, gir1.2-*, gstreamer things, kid3, libqt5-*, pidgin, vlc-*, > etc etc... > > This happens when I try to upgrade or install apparently *anything* > related to GUI programs (GTK/Qt related). > > I am worried to make an upgrade like that. > > What can I do to debug this situation and try to understand which > package(s) is/are breaking everything? > > I have no pinned packages. > It's probably not a single package. I run an unstable workstation, this sort of thing is not that unusual. Whole subsystems get upgraded, such as GTK or the kf5 stuff, but not everything is ready at once. Also, many applications dependent on this subsystem have precise dependencies specified, and are not happy with the new libraries. Those applications have to be upgraded, not necessarily to change them, but to mark them as compatible with the new libraries after testing. So a major change can require hundreds of dependent packages to be revised. This kind of thing never happens in stable, but is fairly common in testing and unstable. What I do is to temporarily switch from upgrade-system to Synaptic. It is relatively quick to select a few innocent-looking packages from the big list, and check that they go through without a problem. After a few tries, you can see where the trouble is, and leave those packages at the current state. People comfortable with the aptitude interactive interface can do the same there, but for some reason, I prefer Synaptic. Generally the state of difficulty lasts only a few days, though it can go on for a week or two sometimes. It's the price you pay for having more up-to-date software than stable has. At the point of release of a new Debian stable, testing is identical to it. At the time of the next release, about two years later, testing is very different, many changes of architecture of major systems having been made. If you use testing or unstable over this period, you have to ride out these upheavals, hoping that nothing important breaks. About eighteen months after release, testing is frozen for bug fixing before the next release, and the ride is much smoother after that. It's quieter in unstable as well, since unstable has to be kept in a condition where it can be copied into testing after the release occurs, so changes to unstable have to be kept within limits. All hell breaks loose at release time... -- Joe
