Package: aptitude
Version: 0.2.15.9-2
Severity: normal
Background
----------
I've just upgraded to sarge from woody, using aptitude on the commandline,
as recommended by the release notes.
For some reason aptitude decided to remove apt-show-versions, which I'd
installed "deliberately" with apt-get while the box was running woody.
I read and I think understood the reason, in the html reference guide
and the manpage.
Problem statement
-----------------
My problem is that the manpage seems to suggest that
aptitude unmarkauto apt-show-versions
should fix the problem, but it appears not to work. As illustrated
below, the only option appears to be to allow aptitude to have its
wicked way and uninstall, then reinstall "deliberately".
I could not see any similar reports to this in the BTS (most reports use
the curses interface, the closest seem to be 235727, 237830, 266061)
Workarounds
-----------
A suggested patch for the manual page is attached.
Future work
-----------
I assume there have been about 500 wishlist bugs to allow this feature to
be turned off in /etc/apt/apt.conf, please add my vote to the clamour.
If this feature exists and is documented, could you point me to the doco
and I'll submit a patch to the reference manual that puts a pointer in
the places that I looked for it.
My dialogue with aptitude is shown below.
# aptitude show apt-show-versions
Package: apt-show-versions
State: installed; will be removed because nothing depends on it
Automatically installed: yes
Version: 0.08
Priority: optional
Section: admin
Maintainer: Christoph Martin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Uncompressed Size: 34.8k
Depends: perl | perl-5.005 | perl-5.004, apt, libapt-pkg-perl, libstorable-perl
Description: lists available package versions with distribution
apt-show-versions parses the dpkg status file and the APT lists for the
installed and available package versions and distribution and shows upgrade
options within the specific distribution of the selected package.
This is really useful if you have a mixed stable/testing environment and want
to list all packages which are from testing and can be upgraded in testing.
# aptitude unmarkauto apt-show-versions
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Reading task descriptions... Done
The following packages are unused and will be REMOVED:
apt-show-versions debhelper devscripts equivs
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 4 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 1907kB will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] n
Abort.
# aptitude -s unmarkauto apt-show-versions debhelper devscripts equivs
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Reading task descriptions... Done
The following packages are unused and will be REMOVED:
apt-show-versions debhelper devscripts equivs
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 4 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 1907kB will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?]
Would download/install/remove packages.
# aptitude unmarkauto apt-show-versions debhelper devscripts equivs
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Reading task descriptions... Done
The following packages are unused and will be REMOVED:
apt-show-versions debhelper devscripts equivs
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 4 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 1907kB will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?]
Writing extended state information... Done
(Reading database ... 85140 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing apt-show-versions ...
Removing equivs ...
Removing debhelper ...
Removing devscripts ...
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Reading task descriptions... Done
# dpkg -l|grep apt-show
rc apt-show-versi 0.08 lists available package versions with distri
# aptitude install apt-show-versions debhelper devscripts equivs
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Reading task descriptions... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
apt-show-versions debhelper devscripts equivs
0 packages upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/597kB of archives. After unpacking 1907kB will be used.
Writing extended state information... Done
Selecting previously deselected package apt-show-versions.
(Reading database ... 84829 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking apt-show-versions (from .../apt-show-versions_0.08_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package debhelper.
Unpacking debhelper (from .../debhelper_4.2.32_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package devscripts.
Unpacking devscripts (from .../devscripts_2.8.14_i386.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package equivs.
Unpacking equivs (from .../equivs_2.0.6-0.1_all.deb) ...
Setting up apt-show-versions (0.08) ...
** initializing cache. This may take a while **
Setting up debhelper (4.2.32) ...
Setting up devscripts (2.8.14) ...
Setting up equivs (2.0.6-0.1) ...
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Reading task descriptions... Done
# aptitude show apt-show-versions
Package: apt-show-versions
State: installed
Automatically installed: no
Version: 0.08
Priority: optional
Section: admin
Maintainer: Christoph Martin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Uncompressed Size: 34.8k
Depends: perl | perl-5.005 | perl-5.004, apt, libapt-pkg-perl, libstorable-perl
Description: lists available package versions with distribution
apt-show-versions parses the dpkg status file and the APT lists for the
installed and available package versions and distribution and shows upgrade
options within the specific distribution of the selected package.
This is really useful if you have a mixed stable/testing environment and want
to list all packages which are from testing and can be upgraded in testing.
------------------------ startpatch ------------------------------------------
--- aptitude.8.orig 2005-09-26 18:00:40.532791541 +1000
+++ aptitude.8 2005-09-26 18:09:47.546432529 +1000
@@ -94,6 +94,8 @@
\fBmarkauto\fR, \fBunmarkauto\fR
Mark packages as automatically installed or manually installed,
respectively\&. Packages are specified in exactly the same way as for the
``\fBinstall\fR'' command\&. For instance, ``\fBaptitude markauto '~slibs'\fR''
will mark all packages in the ``\fBlibs\fR'' section as having been
automatically installed\&.
+To mark a package as non-automatic you will need to ``\fBunmarkauto\fR'' the
package, allow aptitude to uninstall the package, and then reinstall the
package. However it should be marked as ``not automatically installed''
thereafter.
+
For more information on automatically installed packages, see the section
``Managing Automatically Installed Packages'' in the \fBaptitude\fR reference
manual\&.
.TP
------------------------ endpatch --------------------------------------------
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.8-2-686
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)
Versions of packages aptitude depends on:
ii apt [libapt-pkg-libc6.3-5-3 0.5.28.6 Advanced front-end for dpkg
ii libc6 2.3.2.ds1-22 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii libgcc1 1:3.4.3-13 GCC support library
ii libncurses5 5.4-4 Shared libraries for terminal hand
ii libsigc++-1.2-5c102 1.2.5-4 type-safe Signal Framework for C++
ii libstdc++5 1:3.3.5-13 The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
-- no debconf information
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