[Aptitude-devel] Bug#721818: Bug#721818: Should allow to install/remove packages even when dependencies are broken

[Yuri D'Elia]

On 09/04/2013 01:40 PM, David Kalnischkies wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Yuri D'Elia <yuri.delia at eurac.edu> wrote:
>> When using unstable/experimental I sometimes *need* to break dependencies.
> 
> No. Even in unstable/experimental there is no reason to have a broken system.
> If there is it is a glaring bug in the packages which require it and its a
> feature that these packages are not installable and/or removed.
> 
> I am an unstable users myself for years and never had the need to break the
> system. Either the package manager can work out a valid solution or I wait
> 6 hours for the next dinstall run to bring in a valid solution. Everything else
> is not worth the pain.

It depends (see my previous answer to Axel).

Waiting for a package to get rebuilt against a new library (think about
-dev packages) sometimes takes time. Sometimes days. If I need the new
package, I'd rather force the installation and deal with the broken
dependencies (that I don't care about) later.

> Upgrading systems is already very similar to juggling chainsaws,
> I don't see what we would gain by switch them on.

Very funny analogy btw :P

> So from an APT point of view: Hell no, wontfix, close.
> But this bugreport is against aptitude, so feel free to disagree of course.

I absolutely agree it's not important. I needed that very few times.
The last time was maybe last year, on a system with had broken
dependencies after a dist-upgrade and aptitude failed to find any
solution and/or refused to accept any change I made.

With a lot of packages, using apt manually was a major pain.