[Aptitude-devel] Bug#768047: Bug#768047: aptitude: doesn't notice a package is obsolete, when it's not yet for an older suite

[Axel Beckert]

Control: tag -1 - security
Control: severity -1 wishlist
Control: retitle -1 aptitude: facility to show stable security updates for packages which are removed from unstable, but still have installed the last version available in unstable 

Hi Christoph,

Christoph Anton Mitterer wrote:
> aptitude doesn't show me that lcms1 packages are obsolete now,

... which is correct because it isn't obsolete as it's still
downloadable.

Please see the documentation how the "obsolete" filter and grouping
is defined in aptitude:

"This term matches any installed package which is not available in any
version from any archive. These packages appear as “Obsolete or
Locally Installed” in the visual interface."

(From https://aptitude.alioth.debian.org/doc/en/ch02s04s05.html#searchObsolete)

> which of course also means that I wont't get any further (security)
> upgrades for it in unstable and of course I won't get upgrade to
> stable as well, since lcms1 isn't what I'm selecting via
> apt-preferences.

This is IMHO in the user's responsibility if he decides to mix stable
and unstable.

Actually aptitude already offers you the tools to find such packages.
Just build the according view filter, e.g. call:

aptitude -o "Aptitude::Pkg-Display-Limit=~i ?any-version(~Osecurity) !~U !~o"

It's untested as I don't seem have any package in such a state, but
based on what I use to emulate apt-show-version's "newer than in
archive" with aptitude:

aptitude -o "Aptitude::Pkg-Display-Limit=~i ?any-version(!~O.) !~U !~o"

Downgrading to wishlist as this is clearly a feature request and not a
bug -- it works as designed. Also removing the tag security as
security updates for unstable are official not available, as you
already mentioned, hence your scenario is not officially supported
either.

		Regards, Axel
-- 
 ,''`.  |  Axel Beckert <abe at debian.org>, http://people.debian.org/~abe/
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