Here's the response I got from Ximian (aka Helix) on the recent problems I and others have experienced with doing upgrades.
Note that, contrary to what others have reported, Ximian does claim to support woody (but not unstable aka sid). They attribute the problems to problems introduced by the migration of debian packages into testing (woody). If anyone thinks the account at the bottom of this message is inaccurate, feel free to speak up. I don't have first-hand knowledge of it, but, inspired by the reports that sawmill was not available in woody, I did decide to tough it out. I seem to have mostly gotten past the problem after a strange series of apt-get installs of problem libraries, -f installs, and a very weird sequence that went something like this: apt-get upgrade [It says 55 packages to upgrade, then quits part way through] apt-get upgrade [It say 90 packages to upgrade, then quits part way through] apt-get upgrade [continuing to upgrade/configure the packages in pieces] ... All of the partial upgrades included some errors (early on) relating to gnotepad+ and help, and those problems persist. Here's a little scrap: Preparing to replace gnome-help 1.2.4-helix2 (using .../gnome-help_1.4.0.2-1_i386.deb) ... Unpacking replacement gnome-help ... dpkg: error processing /usr/var/apt/archives/gnome-help_1.4.0.2-1_i386.deb (--unpack): trying to overwrite `/usr/share/pixmaps/gnome-help.png', which is also in package gnome-panel-data dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe) Preparing to replace gnotepad+ 1.2.1-1 (using .../gnotepad+_1.3.1-1_i386.deb) ... Unpacking replacement gnotepad+ ... dpkg: error processing /usr/var/apt/archives/gnotepad+_1.3.1-1_i386.deb (--unpack): trying to overwrite `/usr/share/gnome/help/gnotepad+/C/index-5.html', which is also in package gnotepad+-help And here's the report from ximian: ----- Forwarded message from [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Subject: [Bug 2242] Changed - ximian-woody package incompatibility freezes apt Changed by [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bugzilla.ximian.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2242 --- shadow/2242 Thu Apr 19 13:24:07 2001 +++ shadow/2242.tmp.20039 Thu Apr 19 17:27:26 2001 @@ -1,14 +1,14 @@ Bug#: 2242 Product: Ximian GNOME Version: unspecified OS: Linux OS Details: Debian GNU/Linux woody -Status: NEW -Resolution: -Severity: +Status: RESOLVED +Resolution: FIXED +Severity: Unknown Priority: P6 Component: gnome-core AssignedTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ReportedBy: [EMAIL PROTECTED] TargetMilestone: --- URL: @@ -38,6 +38,19 @@ 4/15/2001. 1) Please clarify what you do or don't support. 2) If you do support woody/testing, it would be good to solve this problem. It looks as if woody has a more recent version of the packages than ximian. I don't know why it won't upgrade over the existing ones. + +------- Additional Comments From [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2001-04-19 17:27 ------- +We still support woody. Some packages moved in from sid last week +that broke GNOME on woody (since their dependencies didn't get moved +in at the same time). All of GNOME on woody, not just Ximian GNOME, +was apparently snarled for a while as a consequence. The problem is +apparently solved in woody at this point, but individual machines may +have been left as a twisted mess. I managed to get it all sorted out +on a woody box on Tuesday, though it took quite a bit of wrestling to +do so. A combination of apt-get -f install and apt-get dist-upgrade +didn't help any. I eventually apt-get removed all the packages that +were complaining, and their dependencies, in order to clear up the +mess. At that point, apt-get install started working again. ----- End forwarded message -----