[Aptitude-devel] Bug#748449: aptitude: inconsistency around "become root" when openning the packages database read-only as root

[Yann Dirson]

Package: aptitude
Version: 0.6.10-1
Severity: normal

Launching aptitude (as root) while a dpkg is running results in a
message saying the packages db is openned RO (that's expected), and
says that no changes will be saved until I select "become root" (that
is slightly awkward, but still understandable from my point of view).

However, the "Become root" menu item is greyed out, so the awkward
message may just reveal an unhandled corner case.

-- Package-specific info:
Terminal: screen
$DISPLAY is set.
which aptitude: /usr/bin/aptitude

aptitude version information:
aptitude 0.6.10 compiled at Feb 20 2014 17:26:22
Compiler: g++ 4.8.2
Compiled against:
  apt version 4.12.0
  NCurses version 5.9
  libsigc++ version: 2.2.11
  Ept support enabled.
  Gtk+ support disabled.
  Qt support disabled.

Current library versions:
  NCurses version: ncurses 5.9.20140118
  cwidget version: 0.5.17
  Apt version: 4.12.0

aptitude linkage:
	linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007fffafbfe000)
	libapt-pkg.so.4.12 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libapt-pkg.so.4.12 (0x00007f4fa5f23000)
	libncursesw.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libncursesw.so.5 (0x00007f4fa5cee000)
	libtinfo.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.5 (0x00007f4fa5ac3000)
	libsigc-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsigc-2.0.so.0 (0x00007f4fa58be000)
	libcwidget.so.3 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcwidget.so.3 (0x00007f4fa55b7000)
	libept.so.1.aptpkg4.12 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libept.so.1.aptpkg4.12 (0x00007f4fa535a000)
	libxapian.so.22 => /usr/lib/libxapian.so.22 (0x00007f4fa4f5c000)
	libz.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00007f4fa4d44000)
	libsqlite3.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsqlite3.so.0 (0x00007f4fa4a87000)
	libboost_iostreams.so.1.54.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_iostreams.so.1.54.0 (0x00007f4fa486d000)
	libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f4fa4650000)
	libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00007f4fa4344000)
	libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007f4fa4041000)
	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007f4fa3e2b000)
	libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f4fa3a80000)
	libutil.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libutil.so.1 (0x00007f4fa387d000)
	libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f4fa3679000)
	libbz2.so.1.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libbz2.so.1.0 (0x00007f4fa3468000)
	liblzma.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/liblzma.so.5 (0x00007f4fa3245000)
	libuuid.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libuuid.so.1 (0x00007f4fa303f000)
	librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007f4fa2e37000)
	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f4fa68c7000)

-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable'), (101, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 3.13-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages aptitude depends on:
ii  aptitude-common           0.6.10-1
ii  libapt-pkg4.12            1.0.3
ii  libboost-iostreams1.54.0  1.54.0-5
ii  libc6                     2.18-5
ii  libcwidget3               0.5.17-1
ii  libept1.4.12              1.0.12
ii  libgcc1                   1:4.9.0-2
ii  libncursesw5              5.9+20140118-1
ii  libsigc++-2.0-0c2a        2.2.11-3
ii  libsqlite3-0              3.8.4.3-3
ii  libstdc++6                4.9.0-2
ii  libtinfo5                 5.9+20140118-1
ii  libxapian22               1.2.17-1
ii  zlib1g                    1:1.2.8.dfsg-1

Versions of packages aptitude recommends:
ii  apt-xapian-index                0.46
pn  aptitude-doc-en | aptitude-doc  <none>
ii  libparse-debianchangelog-perl   1.2.0-1
ii  sensible-utils                  0.0.9

Versions of packages aptitude suggests:
ii  debtags  1.12
ii  tasksel  3.20

-- no debconf information