[Aptitude-devel] Bug#757028: aptitude: aptitude does not install new essential packages automatically

[Daniel Hartwig]

Control: tags -1 + confirmed
Control: owner -1 !

On 5 August 2014 09:02, Stanley Schade <nood0131 at web.de> wrote:
> Hi again,
>
> Am Montag, 4. August 2014, 19:08:35 schrieb Axel Beckert:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Stanley Schade wrote:
>> [...] aptitude does not install the new init package automatically,
>> > though it is marked as essential.
>>
>> ... which is what I would expect. AFAIK there's no obligation to
>> install essential packages if they pop up newly -- unless another
>> package depends on it..
>>
> I could not find such an obligation either.

debian-policy section 3.5 (Dependencies) implies the obligation:

  Packages are not required to declare any dependencies they
  have on other packages which are marked Essential (see
  below), and should not do so unless they depend on a
  particular version of that package.

See also [1].

#555896 is related, though specifically about new essential packages
in a non-default release.

Regards

[1] <https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=216768#46>