[Aptitude-devel] Bug#570377: aptitude chooses to remove packages instead of upgrading

Chris Tillman toff.tillman at gmail.com
Sun Feb 2 08:23:56 UTC 2014 

Tags: patch

Ah, now I got a proper patch from debdiff. I hadn't gotten aptitude built
yet the first time.

In actual usage on my system, it suggests upgrades first rather than
removals (without any prefs in apt.conf or on the cmdline).
.


On Sun, Feb 2, 2014 at 7:56 PM, Chris Tillman <toff.tillman at gmail.com>wrote:

> Tags: patch
>
> I think the root of the problem (removing being preferential to upgrading
> in Aptitude's worldview) is that the safe-level and remove-level default
> scores are the same.
>
> *Table 2.2. Default safety cost levels*
> Cost levelDescriptionConfiguration option 10,000 Solutions that include
> only "safe" actions (installing the default target for a package or
> keeping a package at its current version) and package removals.
> Aptitude::ProblemResolver::Safe-Level<http://aptitude.alioth.debian.org/doc/en/ch02s05s05.html#configProblemResolver-Safe-Level>,
> Aptitude::ProblemResolver::Remove-Level<http://aptitude.alioth.debian.org/doc/en/ch02s05s05.html#configProblemResolver-Remove-Level>
> When I use a level just one more than the default for remove-level, I get
> the desired result:
>
> 121-73-239-129:/home/ctillman/aptitude-0.6.8.3/src# aptitude -P -o
> 'Aptitude::ProblemResolver::Remove-Level=10000' -vv full-upgrade
> gir1.2-evince-3.0
>
> The following packages will be upgraded:
>   gir1.2-evince-3.0 libevdocument3-4 libevview3-3
> 3 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 364 not upgraded.
> Need to get 0 B/1,934 kB of archives. After unpacking 85.0 kB will be used.
> The following packages have unmet dependencies:
>  evince : Depends: libevdocument3-4 (= 3.8.3-2) but 3.10.0-2 is to be
> installed.
>           Depends: libevview3-3 (= 3.8.3-2) but 3.10.0-2 is to be
> installed.
> The following actions will resolve these dependencies:
>
>      Remove the following packages:
> 1)     evince
> 2)     gnome
> 3)     gnome-core
>
>      Leave the following dependencies unresolved:
> 4)     epiphany-browser recommends evince
>
>
> vs.
>
>
> 121-73-239-129:/home/ctillman/aptitude-0.6.8.3/src# aptitude -P -o
> 'Aptitude::ProblemResolver::Remove-Level=10001' full-upgrade
> gir1.2-evince-3.0
>
> The following packages will be upgraded:
>   gir1.2-evince-3.0 libevdocument3-4 libevview3-3
> 3 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 364 not upgraded.
> Need to get 0 B/1,934 kB of archives. After unpacking 85.0 kB will be used.
> The following packages have unmet dependencies:
>  evince : Depends: libevdocument3-4 (= 3.8.3-2) but 3.10.0-2 is to be
> installed.
>           Depends: libevview3-3 (= 3.8.3-2) but 3.10.0-2 is to be
> installed.
> The following actions will resolve these dependencies:
>
>      Upgrade the following packages:
> 1)     evince [3.8.3-2 (now) -> 3.10.0-2 (testing)]
> 2)     evince-common [3.8.3-2 (now) -> 3.10.0-2 (testing)]
>
> I tried to prepare a one-line patch with quilt, as referenced in
>
>
> http://raphaelhertzog.com/2011/07/04/how-to-prepare-patches-for-debian-packages/
>
> but I only got one .dsc file instead of two. I'm attaching that and the
> patch file quilt generated in debian/patches.
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 10:01 PM, Axel Beckert <abe at debian.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Vincent Lefevre wrote:
>> > aptitude sometimes prefers to remove packages instead of upgrading.
>>
>> Which is IMHO fine in general. I though must admit that it seems to do
>> that quite often in Debian Unstable.
>>
>> Chris King wrote:
>> > This is a very annoying behavior
>>
>> In Debian Unstable, yes. But it is configurable behaviour, too:
>>
>> Use
>>
>>   Aptitude::ProblemResolver::Remove-Level "maximum";
>>
>> or
>>
>>   Aptitude::ProblemResolver::Hints {
>>           "reject !~M :UNINST";
>>   };
>>
>> in your apt.conf and you're done.
>>
>> The latter works better for this issue, but no more allows you to
>> choose solutions which remove packages unless you explicitly select
>> them for removal with "-" in the package list or on the commandline.
>> This can be annoying, too, and is totally unsuited for dist-upgrades
>> between two stable releases. It hence is _NOT_ a general solution, but
>> is very suitable for unattended upgrades of security upates.
>> aptitude-robot uses it for a while now.
>>
>> The first variant is probably better suited for general use case, but
>> can still cause packages to not be upgraded at all due to conflicts
>> with obosolete packages which actually really should be removed. (I
>> think, this is one of the reasons why this issue is not trivial to fix
>> generally without regressions in other fields like dist-upgrades
>> between two stable releases.)
>>
>> > which Aptitude didn't exhibit a year or so ago.
>>
>> Hrm, I would be curious which patch introduced that change...
>>
>> > Having to hit "n" twenty times before Aptitude decides to upgrade
>> > one package rather than removing 50 is just silly.
>>
>> ... and not necessary at all, even without the above configuration.
>>
>> Just type "r" on all (often suffices to do it only for some) packages
>> and hit "." only afterwards. (I don't know by mind the commandline
>> keybindings for that -- these are for the TUI --  but typing "?" on
>> the prompt may give you hints.)
>>
>> Martin von Wittich wrote:
>> > Could this be caused by packages that are not marked as automatically
>> > installed?
>>
>> In case of conflicts with newer packages, this is possible. But it's
>> rather seldom the case according to my experience.
>>
>> Chris Tillman wrote:
>> > I second (3rd? 4th?) this request.
>>
>> You're also free to submit a patch!
>>
>>                 Regards, Axel
>> --
>>  ,''`.  |  Axel Beckert <abe at debian.org>, http://people.debian.org/~abe/
>> : :' :  |  Debian Developer, ftp.ch.debian.org Admin
>> `. `'   |  1024D: F067 EA27 26B9 C3FC 1486  202E C09E 1D89 9593 0EDE
>>   `-    |  4096R: 2517 B724 C5F6 CA99 5329  6E61 2FF9 CD59 6126 16B5
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Chris Tillman
> Developer
>



-- 
Chris Tillman
Developer
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