[Aptitude-devel] Bug#570377: Aptitude removals

[Chris Tillman]

I bought a new (used) computer, and installed a new system. This annoying
behaviour came back, of course, because I had set the old one up to get rid
of it.

For anyone being affected by these bugs, or annoyed by removals being
offered first, I'd suggest trying this in your ~/.aptitude/config file:

Aptitude "";
Aptitude::ProblemResolver "";
Aptitude::ProblemResolver::Remove-Level "10001";

In any case, it was more than a little humorous that the issue affected
aptitude itself, when I asked  for it to upgrade from jessie to testing. It
proposed removal of itself.
The problem was apparently that synaptic hasn't yet been updated to be
compatible with the new aptitude. So attempting to upgrade aptitude simply
didn't work as long as synaptic was installed. Preferring aptitude to
synaptic, I removed the latter.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to list other open, very probably
related bugs. If nothing else, the number of these bugs is testament to how
many people are shocked that removal is offered before upgrade. Daniel, you
may think removals are "theoretically" equivalent to upgrades, and that's
fine, but many, many users favor upgrades.

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=798240
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=762932
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=757440
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=755391
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=731318
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=724032
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=722211 <-- where Axel
acknowledges the behaviour as well
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=678832
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=671486
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=663134
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=653284
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=643997
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=610845
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=591892
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=588202
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=574132
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=568548
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=565760
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=542264
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=540978
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=514348
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=502766
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=453935
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=444831
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=437291
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=419501
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=401994
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=365644
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=346321
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=342835
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=341963

So, I believe many birds could be killed with just one carefully selected
stone (the originally submitted patchj.

Here's my example du jour.

With default ( Aptitude::ProblemResolver::Remove-Level "10000"; ) out only
option os to remove.

[image: Inline image 2]

With the suggested change  ( Aptitude::ProblemResolver::Remove-Level
"10001"; ) our only option is to upgrade.


[image: Inline image 3]

I attached the two trace files from those small sessions as well.

-- 
Chris Tillman
Developer
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