[Aptitude-devel] Bug#879965: aptitude: build-dep fails with vague (& probably bogus) error

[Nomen Nescio]

Package: aptitude
Version: 0.8.7-1
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,

Running "aptitude --log-level=debug build-dep mutt" produces:

  Unable to satisfy the build-depends: Build-Depends: libgpgme11-dev
  Unable to apply some actions, aborting

I see a few bugs here:

1) If I omit "--log-level=debug" I get the same output.  So it's
unfortunate that the "debug" logging level does not clear up the
extreme vagueness of the output.

2) The libgpgme11-dev package is already installed.  So aptitude
should not even be attempting to install it in the first place.

3) "Unable to satisfy.." is too vague, and also printing
"..build-depends: Build-Depends:.." is redundant.

4) "Unable to apply some actions" is too vague.  What actions?

It's also important to point out that apt-get has no problem.  That
is, running "apt-get build-dep mutt" shows:

  Reading package lists... Done
  Reading package lists... Done
  Building dependency tree
  Reading state information... Done
  The following NEW packages will be installed:
    comerr-dev krb5-multidev libgnutls28-dev libgnutlsxx28 libgssrpc4 libidn11-dev libkadm5clnt-mit11 libkadm5srv-mit11 libkdb5-8
    libkrb5-dev libncursesw5-dev libnotmuch-dev libp11-kit-dev libsasl2-dev libtasn1-6-dev libtokyocabinet-dev nettle-dev zlib1g-dev
  0 upgraded, 18 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
  Need to get 4,411 kB of archives.
  After this operation, 15.2 MB of additional disk space will be used.
  Do you want to continue? [Y/n]

and apt-get simply works in this case.

-- Package-specific info:
Terminal: screen.xterm-256color
$DISPLAY is set.
which aptitude: /usr/bin/aptitude

aptitude version information:
aptitude 0.8.7
Compiler: g++ 6.3.0 20170406
Compiled against:
  apt version 5.0.1
  NCurses version 6.0
  libsigc++ version: 2.10.0
  Gtk+ support disabled.
  Qt support disabled.

Current library versions:
  NCurses version: ncurses 6.0.20161126
  cwidget version: 0.5.17
  Apt version: 5.0.1

aptitude linkage:
	linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007fff9b260000)
	/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/torsocks/libtorsocks.so (0x00007fb9a8c2b000)
	libapt-pkg.so.5.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libapt-pkg.so.5.0 (0x00007fb9a8879000)
	libncursesw.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libncursesw.so.5 (0x00007fb9a8649000)
	libtinfo.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.5 (0x00007fb9a841f000)
	libsigc-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsigc-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fb9a8218000)
	libcwidget.so.3 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcwidget.so.3 (0x00007fb9a7f1b000)
	libsqlite3.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsqlite3.so.0 (0x00007fb9a7c13000)
	libboost_iostreams.so.1.62.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_iostreams.so.1.62.0 (0x00007fb9a79fb000)
	libboost_filesystem.so.1.62.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_filesystem.so.1.62.0 (0x00007fb9a77e2000)
	libboost_system.so.1.62.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_system.so.1.62.0 (0x00007fb9a75de000)
	libxapian.so.30 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxapian.so.30 (0x00007fb9a71ca000)
	libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fb9a6fad000)
	libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00007fb9a6c2b000)
	libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007fb9a6927000)
	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007fb9a6710000)
	libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007fb9a6371000)
	libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007fb9a616d000)
	libresolv.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libresolv.so.2 (0x00007fb9a5f56000)
	libz.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00007fb9a5d3c000)
	libbz2.so.1.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libbz2.so.1.0 (0x00007fb9a5b2c000)
	liblzma.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/liblzma.so.5 (0x00007fb9a5906000)
	liblz4.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/liblz4.so.1 (0x00007fb9a56f4000)
	librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007fb9a54ec000)
	libuuid.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libuuid.so.1 (0x00007fb9a52e7000)
	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fb9a9457000)

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 9.2
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=1509112945 WARNING torsocks[10625]: [syscall] Unsupported syscall number 217. Denying the call (in tsocks_syscall() at syscall.c:488)
UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=1509112945 WARNING torsocks[10627]: [syscall] Unsupported syscall number 217. Denying the call (in tsocks_syscall() at syscall.c:488)
UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages aptitude depends on:
ii  aptitude-common            0.8.7-1
ii  libapt-pkg5.0              1.4.8
ii  libboost-filesystem1.62.0  1.62.0+dfsg-4
ii  libboost-iostreams1.62.0   1.62.0+dfsg-4
ii  libboost-system1.62.0      1.62.0+dfsg-4
ii  libc6                      2.24-11+deb9u1
ii  libcwidget3v5              0.5.17-4+b1
ii  libgcc1                    1:6.3.0-18
ii  libncursesw5               6.0+20161126-1+deb9u1
ii  libsigc++-2.0-0v5          2.10.0-1
ii  libsqlite3-0               3.16.2-5
ii  libstdc++6                 6.3.0-18
ii  libtinfo5                  6.0+20161126-1+deb9u1
ii  libxapian30                1.4.3-2

Versions of packages aptitude recommends:
ii  libparse-debianchangelog-perl  1.2.0-12
ii  sensible-utils                 0.0.9

Versions of packages aptitude suggests:
pn  apt-xapian-index                <none>
pn  aptitude-doc-en | aptitude-doc  <none>
pn  debtags                         <none>
ii  tasksel                         3.39