Bug#384674: marked as done (asterisk has circular Depends on asterisk-bristuff|asterisk-classic)

[Jonas Smedegaard]

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reopen 384674
thanks

> From:
> Bill Allombert <ballombe at debian.org>

> Circular dependencies are known to cause problems during upgrade,
> so we should try to get rid of them.

Killian Krause responded:
> Closing as this is not really a problem as no second source is involved
> and thus transitioning always happens for all three in sync.

Bill points to a thread were he states this:
> 5) There is an urban legend that circular dependencies between packages
> build from the same source are harmless. This is false of course. Being
> part of the same source package has no effect of the Packages.gz file
> whatsoever.


Transitioning does _not_ always happen in sync, even when pacaged in sync:

  * Package lists keep binary packages in sync only when relying
    on current pooling of packages in Debian (which is not
    mandated by policy, and may change to better handle CDDs).
  * Installation process upgrades all related packages only when
    they are all available (think interruption during download of
    the packages).


I suggest the following:

  * Have the -common package only recommend the other packages.
  * Educate confused users to use a non-broken[1] package manager.


Kind regards,

 - Jonas

[1] Debian Policy clearly describes the purpose of "Recommends:", but
unfortunately the first proof-of-concept tool to use the cool new APT
packaging engine, "apt-get", is broken in this regard.
Personally I have a love affair with aptitude (which is also the tool
recommended to use in official Debian installation documentation, if I
remember correctly), but other tools work fine too.


- --
* Jonas Smedegaard - idealist og Internet-arkitekt
* Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

 - Enden er nær: http://www.shibumi.org/eoti.htm
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