[Aptitude-devel] Bug#696411: aptitude: Missing dependency on apt?

[Axel Beckert]

Package: aptitude
Version: 0.6.8.2-1
Severity: important

After I ran into http://bugs.debian.org/548505 (aptitude: considers apt
essential) I noticed, that if apt isn't really essential, in theory I
should be able to remove apt and then still be able use
aptitude. (Actually someone asked me a few months ago if you can use
aptitude without apt and answered "no" because due to #548505 I thought
that apt is an essential package anyway.)

aptitude has no dependency on apt, just on libapt-pkg4.12 which is built
from the apt source package.

Nevertheless very basic actions, like installing an additional package,
fail, if apt is not installed:

root at acromantula-domu1:~# aptitude install htop
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  htop 
0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 74.9 kB of archives. After unpacking 216 kB will be used.
W: Unable to read /etc/apt/preferences.d/ - DirectoryExists (2: No such file or directory)
W: Unable to read /etc/apt/preferences.d/ - DirectoryExists (2: No such file or directory)
E: The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/http could not be found.
E: The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/http could not be found.
E: Internal error: couldn't generate list of packages to download
root at acromantula-domu1:~# 

So since apt is not essential, but aptitude needs some binaries out of
that package to perform very common actions, aptitude must have a
dependency on apt (or at least recommend it).

Filing as non-RC as it seems a rather theoretical issue. Feel free to
raise the severity to serious, though.

                     Regards, Axel