[Pkg-puppet-devel] Bug#532398: Bug#532398: trying to pull packages from backports may introduce 'dependency hell'

[Matthew Palmer]

On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 10:44:46AM +1000, Jayen Ashar wrote:
> How can I set aptitude as my preferred package provider globally?  I  
> can't find any documentation on it, and a google search for "global  
> preferred package provider" (and variants) doesn't give me anything 
> useful.

Default the provider for the Package type to be aptitude.  There's docs on
that.

> Is there any documentation on why apt-get is the default for  
> debian/ubuntu, when aptitude is installed?

Because nobody's put forward a patch to do it differently.

Your problem isn't aptitude vs apt-get, though -- apt-get is perfectly
capable of resolving and installing dependencies.  My guess is that you
haven't setup your preferences correctly to tell Puppet to install dependent
packages from your backports repo:

  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
    
Basically, your system config is screwed, and it's not Puppet's fault.  Nor
will switching to aptitude solve your problem (unless it ignores repo
preferences).

- Matt