[Aptitude-devel] Bug#822272: aptitude: No more forgets reinstallation instruction after reinstallation has happened

[Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo]

Control: tags -1 - moreinfo
Control: close -1


Hi,

2016-05-05 17:10 Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo:
>2016-04-25 19:22 Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo:
>>2016-04-25 12:22 Axel Beckert:
>>>Hi Manuel,
>>>
>>>Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo wrote:
>>>>>If I select a package for reinstallation by pressing "L" in the TUI and
>>>>>then press 2x "g", the package will be reinstalled.
>>>>>
>>>>>Afterwards at "Press Return to continue, 'q' followed by Return to
>>>>>quit."  I press <Enter> (not Ctrl-C) and it still lists that package for
>>>>>reinstallation.
>>>>
>>>>Hmmm, I cannot reproduce it
>>>
>>>Meh. Ok, I'll dig up some more details which could be related:
>>>
>>>* The packages in question are aptitude, aptitude-common,
>>>aptitude-dbgsym and aptitude-doc-en 0.8-1. I wanted to reinstall
>>>them because I had initially installed a self-built copy of it.
>>>Haven't tested other packages yet, but will.
>>>[...]
>>>Hrm, maybe it's related to respectively only happens due to the new
>>>"aptitude can't uninstall aptitude" feature?
>>
>>If you put the locally built packages in some dir that it's added to
>>apt's sources-list, I think that this is a problem that happens
>>independently of being "aptitude" packages -- packages with same file
>>names but different hashes, and libapt/aptitude somehow prefering one
>>over the other.
>>
>>(I have the gut feeling that solving these cases cleanly, reinstall or
>>not, is an unsolvable problem in general).
>>
>>If you have them outside source.list's dirs and install them with
>>e.g. dpkg or "apt local install", then I don't know.
>
>I tried reinstalling {aptitude,aptitude-common}_0.8-1, and after dpkg
>performs the actions, aptitude re-reads the states and removes the
>"reinstall" status.  In other works, working fine for me.
>
>This is most puzzling.

Well, so in principle this is:

a) restricted to "aptitude" packages or some very specific set of
   conditions (so in any case, it is quite limited / minor / corner
   case; that maybe wouldn't warrant an attempt to fix if it causes
   bigger problems),

b) the workaround is trivial,

c) and at least I cannot reproduce it,

d) and since you didn't comment in a while, I suppose that you either
   didn't try or cannot either.


Even if you can reproduce it, as I said in a previous message, I think
that part of the reason was that you were using self-built copies --
when the checksums don't match.  I think that apt will always set that
version as candidate for upgrade until upgraded, if the repository is
pinned higher -- it (rightly in the general case, IMO) considers them
different versions, and this will have similar effects on being marked
for reinstall.

So I am closing this bug for the time being.


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