Bug#263544: gconf2: error on upgrade to sarge

[J.H.M. Dassen (Ray)]

On Thu, Aug 05, 2004 at 03:01:09 +0000, James Strandboge wrote:
> Upgrade from woody to sarge and received this error:
> dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of libgconf2-4:
>  libgconf2-4 depends on gconf2 (>= 2.6.2-1); however:
>   Package gconf2 is not configured yet.
> dpkg: error processing libgconf2-4 (--configure):
>  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
> 
> I am the maintainer of the gnome2.2 backport for woody, and upgraded from
> woody with this backport,

I've tried to reproduce this problem, but failed. I did run into a similar
problem though:

pbuilder create --distribution woody
pbuilder login
apt-get -y install vim
vim /etc/apt/sources.list
# Add:
# deb http://ftp.acc.umu.se/mirror/mirrors.evilgeniuses.org.uk/debian/backports/woody gnome2.2/
# deb http://mirror.raw.no/ gnome2.2/ 
apt-get update && apt-get -u dist-upgrade
apt-get install gnome-core
# Installation fails due to
#	dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of gnome-panel:
#	 gnome-panel depends on gnome-panel-data (= 2.2.2.2-0jds3); however:
#	  Package gnome-panel-data is not configured yet.
#	dpkg: error processing gnome-panel (--configure):
#	 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg --pending --configure
# Now all packages are in state 'ii'.
vim /etc/apt/sources.list
# s/woody/sarge/ for the regular archive lines
apt-get update
apt-get install libgconf2-4
# libgconf2-4 gets installed just fine

I suspect that what we're seeing may not be a bug in our packages somewhere,
but rather a bug or limitation in apt which only shows itself when upgrading
a large number of packages with complex interdependencies. Possibly we're
seeing another instance of http://bugs.debian.org/172339 .

> but no errors or conflicts were reported with my packages (ie, the above
> is the ONLY error received).

This fits my hypothesis extremely well. libgconf2-4 declares its
dependencies properly, but that information is being ignored by the tool
you're having call dpkg; presumably, apt.

Ray
-- 
I think Microsoft should say, "You'll get a check from Bill Gates every time
you find an error."
	Donald Knuth, "All Questions Answered",
	http://www.ams.org/notices/200203/fea-knuth.pdf