[Aptitude-devel] Bug#588665: aptitude: Impossible update (I think that aptitude can't find dependencys)

[Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo]

Control: tags -1 + moreinfo

Hi,

It is unclear if this is because of an infinite loop, or because for
example the machine starts using swap memory and things slow down
significantly after some point, or perhaps because it tries very hard
to work out how to upgrade without removing packages (which is the
mode of operation of "safe-upgrade").

Does this still happen in your system, and if yes with which versions
of aptitude?

Does it happen the same when you do "full-upgrade" (be warned that it
might be more disruptive changes than "safe-upgrade", as the name
implies)?

>From the manual page:

       safe-upgrade
       [...]
           It is sometimes necessary to remove one package in order to
upgrade another; this command is not able to upgrade packages in such
situations. Use the full-upgrade command to upgrade as many packages
as possible.

       full-upgrade
           Upgrades installed packages to their most recent version,
removing or installing packages as necessary. This command is less
conservative than safe-upgrade and thus more likely to perform
unwanted actions. However, it is capable of upgrading packages that
safe-upgrade cannot upgrade.


You can perhaps also try partial upgrades to alleviate the situation:

           If no <package>s are listed on the command line, aptitude
will attempt to upgrade every package that can be upgraded. Otherwise,
aptitude will attempt to upgrade only the packages which it is
instructed to upgrade. The <package>s can be extended with suffixes in
the same manner as arguments to aptitude install, so you can also give
additional instructions to aptitude here; for instance, aptitude
safe-upgrade bash dash- will attempt to upgrade the bash package and
remove the dash package.


Cheers.
-- 
Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo <manuel.montezelo at gmail.com>