[Aptitude-devel] Bug#841506: aptitude: cannot reinstall package available as update

[Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo]

2017-03-07 0:53 GMT+01:00 Jonas Smedegaard <dr at jones.dk>:
> Quoting Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo (2017-03-06 22:33:18)
>> 2016-10-21 11:22 Jonas Smedegaard:
>> >Package: aptitude
>> >Version: 0.8.3-1+b1
>> >Severity: important
>> >
>> >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> >Hash: SHA256
>> >
>> >Aptitude has thrown me into limbo (hence severity important):
>> >
>> >A kernel update failed (ran out of space in /boot, and/or bugs in kernel
>> >hooks for sicherboot), flagging it as needing a reinstall.
>> >
>> >Choosing "L" to reinstall and then "G", is refused with (in danish, on
>> >my system) a message saying that no packages will be installed, removed
>> >or upgraded, some packages could be upgraded, and I should press "U" to
>> >do that.
>> >
>> >Seems that check is missing the option of reinstall in its logic.
>>
>> I think that the problem might be that it cannot use the same version of
>> the package to download, if it's not available in the list of packages,
>> so it cannot do nothing, other than suggesting to upgrade.
>
> Not sure I follow what you are saying above.  Seems you are saying that
> you suspect that pressing "L" cannot work.  I have reinstalled packages
> before in that way.

Oh, my bad.  I thought that the package had become upgradable at some
point, so aptitude cannot download the package from the server
anymore, thus you cannot reinstall the same version (only the upgraded
one).  It's a relatively common case that causes problem with
reinstall operations.

I have never seen aptitude to prevent the user from reinstalling,
neither with versions of aptitude from stable nor the ones in
unstable.  So unless it was caused by its broken state, I have no idea
where that comes from.

Under normal conditions, one can reinstall a single package ("l" +
"g") at any time, no problem -- it doesn't prevent to Go ahead just
because reinstall is not a supported operation.  Does this work for
you right now, I hope?


>> Do you remember if it allowed you to fix the system by using "+"
>> (install or upgrade) instead?
>
> No, I did not try to use "+": Aptitude explicitly told that it needed
> _reinstall_ and it worked to _request_ a reinstall but then failed to
> _execute_ the request. Frankly didn't occur to me to try trick aptitude
> by requesting an _update_ for a package with no newer version available
> but in broken state.

Nevermind.  This has to do with my wrong interpretation.  When the
package to be reinstalled has been upgraded in the server, one should
upgrade, reinstall never works.


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