I agree on David (above). I observed this bug after upgrading from karmic to 
lucid. Also i observed that though "Recommended Package" is selected by default 
in my apt configuration, there exist some package by which the relative 
"recommended packages" are not installed at all. Moreover, I was surprised that 
some package has an obviously list of recommended packages, most of them are 
not installed. As instance, i found the package kdm recommends metacity, e16 
and a lot of packages which are clearly different neither dependent on not used 
by kdm at all. 
So i am asking whether is it possible a lack of some recommended package 
determines that there are packages installed without their complete dependent 
package list, and so meta-packages fail?

At first sight, i don't think the problem is hard to solve and it is not 
related to a specific program (apt, synaptic, installer), but in a mistaken 
metapackage list in some meta-package. i think there is one or more metapackage 
with an incomplete list of dependencies OR a metapackage previously used has 
been discarded in the new ubuntu/kubuntu version and this was not the case for 
many other packages which still require that root-metapackage. 
So, a solution could be to compute the graph of dependency and compare that 
with the list of package installed. in the graph of dependency should appear 
"new packages" which link the "installed (manually)" directly. These new 
packages are the metapackages that must be rebuild. With this solution, I don't 
think there would be problems (a part of course conflicts in the installation 
of packages) because it adds new package and does not remove existing 
dependencies.

I think it might be a serious problem, especially because, during upgrading 
from a version to the next one, if a dependency change at metapackage level for 
a "package suffering of this problem", there could be inchoerences in the new 
version for that package (e.g. it does not have all dependence installed) and 
the system could break. I hope to be wrong and to much pessimist, however i 
think it is a bug which requires to be solved asap.
Anyway, as Colin Watson said, i agree on the risk of "correcting badly that 
bug" could seriously damage the system, more that what it is now with this bug. 

hope to be useful,

p.s. 
thanks the ubuntu/kubuntu team. you are doing a good work! :D

-- 
fresh Ubuntu install marks all packages as manually installed
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/424643
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu.

-- 
ubuntu-bugs mailing list
ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs

Reply via email to