Bug#677407: gnome-dbg: fails to upgrade from squeeze - apt does not find an upgrade path

[Andreas Beckmann]

On 2012-11-26 12:44, Simon McVittie wrote:
> On Sat, 16 Jun 2012 at 10:49:19 +0200, Andreas Beckmann wrote:
>> the problem I previously reported for gnome-dbg now also shows up for
>> gnome-core.
> 
> Your log from 1st November is for gnome-dbg. Is this reproducible
> for gnome-core too, or only for gnome-dbg?

squeeze2wheezy/main/affected/gnome-dbg_1:3.4+6.log
   libglib2.0-0 : Breaks: eog (< 3.2.2-3) but 2.30.2-1 is to be installed
  E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be
caused by held packages.

squeeze2wheezy/main/affected/gnome-core_1:3.4+6.log
E: Could not perform immediate configuration on 'libgstreamer0.10-0'.

different issue, could be filed already, but I didn't have time to look
for 'immediate configuration' bugs check the dependenecy tree for
circular dependencies - and break them :-)

> Could you please explain how an apt or GNOME developer with no particular
> knowledge of piuparts or pbuilder can reproduce this upgrade issue? (I
> use sbuild for my package uploads, so I don't have a working pbuilder
> setup; in his message of 13th October, Neil Williams performed a
> "realistic" upgrade test of gnome-dbg in a Squeeze virtual machine,
> which was successful.)

the piuparts logs contain the piuparts command line, installing piuparts
from sid and rerunning that command should work (just drop all the
experimental flags piuparts complains it does not know, e.g.
--allow-database, they should not be needed for checking the gnome issues)

> Would an artificial dependency, gnome-dbg Depends: gir1.2-gstreamer-0.10
> or even gnome-core Depends: gir1.2-gstreamer-0.10, perhaps reassure apt that it
> was doing the right thing by installing gir1.2-gstreamer-0.10 and
> dropping gir1.0-gstreamer-0.10? Or is there something else that src:meta-gnome
> could do to hint apt to do the right thing?

That could work.
Or try to find a library in the involved dependency tree that has a
high score and try to add another Breaks: gir1.0-gstreamer-0.10
Perhaps it loses this battle ... (the metapackages usually have a low score)
If you put such packages (for amd64) somewhere, I could make some tests.

> Perhaps another way to convince apt to DTRT would be to change the
> dependency
> 
>   libseed-gtk3-0 D: gir1.2-gstreamer-0.10 | libgstreamer0.10-0 (< 0.10.25-3)
> 
> and remove the obsolete alternative (the second branch), to make the
> "right answer" more obvious?

since squeeze has 0.10.30-1, this should be cleaned up, but it won't
help (as it's not a possible solution, i.e. there is no old package that
could be kept to satisfy this)

Andreas