Debian Bug report logs - #544481
[apt] apt mixes essential flag from all sources

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From: [email protected] (Debian Bug Tracking System)
To: Santiago Vila <[email protected]>
Subject: Bug#544481: marked as done (diff should not be an essential package)
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
 <[email protected]>
X-Debian-PR-Message: closed 544481
X-Debian-PR-Package: diff
X-Debian-PR-Source: diffutils
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 22:57:03 +0000
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Your message dated Tue, 1 Sep 2009 00:50:15 +0200 (CEST)
with message-id <[email protected]>
and subject line Re: Bug#544481: diff should not be an essential package
has caused the Debian Bug report #544481,
regarding diff should not be an essential package
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

(NB: If you are a system administrator and have no idea what this
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-- 
544481: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=544481
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact [email protected] with problems

[Message part 2 (message/rfc822, inline)]

From: Vincent Lefevre <[email protected]>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <[email protected]>

Subject: diff should not be an essential package

Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 23:35:00 +0200

Package: diff
Version: 1:2.8.1-16
Severity: normal

The description of diff says:

Description: dummy transitional package for diff -> diffutils
 This is a dummy package to aid in transitioning from diff to diffutils.
 It may be safely removed after upgrading to squeeze.

(from "dpkg -s diff") and the package contains nothing except in
/usr/share/doc/diff. But apt-get doesn't want to remove it:

# apt-get remove diff
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  diff
WARNING: The following essential packages will be removed.
This should NOT be done unless you know exactly what you are doing!
  diff
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 13 not upgraded.
After this operation, 32.8kB disk space will be freed.
You are about to do something potentially harmful.
To continue type in the phrase 'Yes, do as I say!'
 ?]

-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.30-1-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=POSIX, LC_CTYPE=en_US.ISO8859-1 (charmap=ISO-8859-1)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages diff depends on:
ii  diffutils                     1:2.8.1-16 File comparison utilities

diff recommends no packages.

diff suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information

[Message part 3 (message/rfc822, inline)]

From: Santiago Vila <[email protected]>

To: Vincent Lefevre <[email protected]>, [email protected]

Subject: Re: Bug#544481: diff should not be an essential package

Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 00:50:15 +0200 (CEST)

On Mon, 31 Aug 2009, Vincent Lefevre wrote:

> Package: diff
> Version: 1:2.8.1-16
> Severity: normal
> 
> The description of diff says:
> 
> Description: dummy transitional package for diff -> diffutils
>  This is a dummy package to aid in transitioning from diff to diffutils.
>  It may be safely removed after upgrading to squeeze.
> 
> (from "dpkg -s diff") and the package contains nothing except in
> /usr/share/doc/diff. But apt-get doesn't want to remove it:
> 
> # apt-get remove diff
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree       
> Reading state information... Done
> The following packages will be REMOVED:
>   diff
> WARNING: The following essential packages will be removed.
> This should NOT be done unless you know exactly what you are doing!
>   diff

For FSM's sake, please use the source, Luke:

apt-get source diffutils
cd diffutils-2.8.1/
less debian/control

The diff dummy package is NOT essential. Only the diff package that
you installed from experimental a lot of time ago.

Obviously, if you remove experimental from sources.list, then apt-get
clearly will NOT upgrade essential diff 2.8.7 to dummy diff 2.8.1 in unstable
"so that your diff package is smoothly renamed to diffutils",
as 2.8.7 > 2.8.1.

If you installed something from experimental, deal with it, and be
ready to fix what's broken, specially if you then REMOVED experimental
from sources.list.

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