[Aptitude-devel] Bug#769303: reverse override: aptitude:admin/standard aptitude-common:admin/standard

[Default Identity]

package: ftp.debian.org
severity: serious
X-Debbugs-Cc: aptitude at packages.debian.org

hello.

it appears that downgrading the priority of aptitude and friends from
important to to standard, we have caused this bug to resurface:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=681347

[i tried stating that this problem happened again in the bug that was
created to demote aptitude and aptitude-common from important to standard, 
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=758561 , but the bug
was archived with no resolution]

in testing and unstable, debian-installer installations can no longer
complete, because they hang at the "select and install" screen.  this
can be observed in /var/log/syslog:

Sep 19 15:43:13 main-menu[4024]: INFO: Menu item 'pkgsel' selected
Sep 19 15:43:15 pkgsel: checking for (security) updates to the base
system
Sep 19 15:43:16 in-target: Can't exec "aptitude": No such file or
directory at /usr/bin/debconf-apt-progress line 130, <STDIN> line 2.
Sep 19 15:43:16 in-target: Use of uninitialized value in vec
at /usr/bin/debconf-apt-progress line 274, <STDIN> line 2.
Sep 19 15:43:16 in-target: Use of uninitialized value in vec
at /usr/bin/debconf-apt-progress line 275, <STDIN> line 2.

because aptitude is no longer "important", it wasn't installed
into /target, and the screen's progress updates failed, hanging the
install.

debconf-apt-progress either needs to be switched to apt-get, to relieve
the aptitude dependency, or aptitude needs to be marked as important
again.

this problem has existed for at least two months.

david