(Sorry for the overlapping previous comments today, but I process my bug mail sequentially, mpt :)
1. In the past this error message covered to different errors: Unfinished previous installations and a broken dependency tree. The first one will be the result of a faiulre in a post installation script or of an user/poer outage cancelling the configuration of packages. aptdaemon now has got the FixInstall method, but will also try to fix this issue before running any transaction silently. The second issue occurs mostly if the user forces an installation or installs package files directly using dpkg. dpkg doesn't perform any checks before installing. So it installs a package, detects broken dependencies and aborts. Moreover this can also occur in some rare corner cases/failures of the apt resolver. I will only focus on this issue here. 2. Right. You need to repair this before installing or removing any further packages. 2a. But you can browse applications in the meantime. It seems that we haven't separated the two issues well before, see above. The broken cache issue which refers to unfinished installations should be gone and only this one needs to be shown to the user. 3. For most cases fixing the dependencies should work properly. But properly in the sense of having a non-broken cache afterwards and not in the sense of providing the user a useful system afterwards - or keeping the applications which are used regularly. If the user has messed up repositories or uses the development version of ubuntu this could result in a massive package removal. 4. Hard to make assumptions on the elapsed time, since it could include downloading and installing packages: So several minutes. 5. It always includes installing or removing packages. 5a.The FixBrokenDepends transaction of aptdaemon allows to simulate the action and so provides a download size and a list of packages which will be removed or installed. See also #635547 -- Can't fix broken packages from within USC https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/442262 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
