Debian bug report logs - #1644
dselect out of sync with dpkg

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From cus.cam.ac.uk!iwj10 Wed Oct 11 17:29:42 1995
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Date: Thu, 12 Oct 95 00:55 BST
From: Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk>
To: debian-bugs@pixar.com
Subject: Re: Bug#1644: dselect out of sync with dpkg

Raul Miller writes ("Bug#1644: dselect out of sync with dpkg"):
> More info:
> 
> this was caused by the absence of the emacs .deb file.  Basically, I
> would classify it as a difficult to interpret set of error messages.

What, precisely, would you like the programs to have said, and can you
think of a way of implementing it ?  Did you try running dpkg --audit ?

> [Are dpkg error messages logged automatically when dselect invokes
> dpkg?  If so, it would be nice to have a "browse error messages from
> this session", and possibly even a "report bug, excerpting session
> log" option from dselect.]

No, error messages aren't logged automatically - this is on the
buglist as #957.

Ian.

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Date: Wed, 11 Oct 95 20:24 BST
From: Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk>
To: Debian developers list <debian-devel@pixar.com>,
        debian-bugs-done@pixar.com
Subject: Re: Bug#1644: dselect out of sync with dpkg

Raul Miller writes [I've edited the screenshot to fit a bit better]:
> Package: dpkg
> Version: 1.0.3
> 
> Here's a screen from dselect:
> 
> dselect - main package listing (by priority)
> HIOS Pri Section  Package      Description
>     ----- All Standard packages in section editors -----
>  -** Std editors  emacs        The GNU Emacs editor.
>   -- Std editors  emacs-nox    GNU Emacs binary (without X11
>   __ Std editors  emacs-x      GNU Emacs binary (with X11 su
>     ----- All Standard packages in section mail -----
>  *** Std mail     biff         A simple mail notification to
>  *** Std mail     elm          A full screen ELectronic Mail 
>  *** Std mail     mh           MH is a set of electronic mai
>  *** Std mail     procmail     Versatile e-mail processor.
> emacs        removed (configs remain);  selected (was: selected).
               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

> Here's from the dpkg run immediately preceeding generation of this display:
> 
> dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of hyperlatex:
>  hyperlatex depends on emacs; however:
>   Package emacs is not installed.

Yes, that's entirely correct.

> [...]
> I think it's strange that dselect presumes that emacs is installed,
> when in fact it is not.

dselect only thinks that Emacs is *selected*.  It will allow you to
select packages which depend on others that you have selected but not
installed yet.  This is so that you can select all the packages at
once and then install them.

The problem is that you never gave dpkg a copy of emacs*.deb to
install, so it didn't.

> [As an aside, to attempt to fix this problem, I de-selected emacs,
> removed it, then re-selected emacs to attempt to force its
> installation.  This didn't change anything.]

Did you also run [I] for Install from the main dselect menu ?
Are you sure your copy of the FTP site has emacs*.deb ?

> Then again, maybe this isn't a problem with dselect,
> here's what dpkg --status emacs has to say:
> 
> Package: emacs
> Status: install ok config-files
> Priority: standard
> Section: editors
> Maintainer: Ian Murdock <imurdock@debian.org>
> Version: 19.29
> Revision: 1
> Depends: emacs-nox | emacs-x
> Optional: emacs-el
> Conffiles:
>  /etc/site-start.el 67336a514b5873eea3341fb5421182b4
> Description: The GNU Emacs editor.
>  GNU Emacs is the extensible self-documenting text editor.
> 
> On the third hand, when I select emacs I'm not taken into a recursive package listing
> to select emacs-nox or emacs-x, so maybe the problem is with dselect...
> 
> [I had removed emacs-x on the assumption that the emacs distribution had been
> upgraded such that it didn't make a distinction between -x and -nox -- I thought
> there'd been a change such that the X libs were included in base and all
> -x -nox package pairs had been simplified...]

Ah.  This may have something to do with it.  You've done half the job
manually - removing emacs-x and emacs-nox - without doing the other
half - upgrading to a new emacs package that doesn't require them.

If you run the dselect Install option (or use some other means to
provide dpkg with a copy of emacs*.deb) it should put things right.
I'm marking this as don.e

Ian.

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From magenta.com!moth Wed Oct 11 10:51:47 1995
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From: Raul Miller <moth@magenta.com>
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To: debian-bugs@pixar.com
In-Reply-To: <m0t35G7-0007bqC@grus.cus.cam.ac.uk> (iwj10@thor.cam.ac.uk)
Subject: Re: Bug#1644: dselect out of sync with dpkg

More info:

this was caused by the absence of the emacs .deb file.  Basically, I
would classify it as a difficult to interpret set of error messages.

[Are dpkg error messages logged automatically when dselect invokes
dpkg?  If so, it would be nice to have a "browse error messages from
this session", and possibly even a "report bug, excerpting session
log" option from dselect.]

-- 
Raul

Message received at debian-bugs:

From tad.micro.umn.edu!rdm Wed Oct 11 10:34:46 1995
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From: rdm@tad.micro.umn.edu (Raul Miller)
To: debian-bugs@pixar.com
Subject: dselect out of sync with dpkg

Package: dpkg
Version: 1.0.3

Here's a screen from dselect:

dselect - main package listing (by priority)                     +/-=select v=verbose ?=help
HIOS Pri Section  Package      Description
    ----- All Standard packages in section editors -----
 -** Std editors  emacs        The GNU Emacs editor.
  -- Std editors  emacs-nox    GNU Emacs binary (without X11 support).
  __ Std editors  emacs-x      GNU Emacs binary (with X11 support).
    ----- All Standard packages in section mail -----
 *** Std mail     biff         A simple mail notification tool
 *** Std mail     elm          A full screen ELectronic Mail interactive user agent.
 *** Std mail     mh           MH is a set of electronic mail handling programs.  Unlike
 *** Std mail     procmail     Versatile e-mail processor.
emacs        removed (configs remain);  selected (was: selected).  Standard
emacs - The GNU Emacs editor.

GNU Emacs is the extensible self-documenting text editor.





description of emacs 



Here's from the dpkg run immediately preceeding generation of this display:

dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of hyperlatex:
 hyperlatex depends on emacs; however:
  Package emacs is not installed.
dpkg: error processing hyperlatex (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of psnfss:
 psnfss depends on texpsfnt; however:
  Package texpsfnt is not installed.
dpkg: error processing psnfss (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /disk/debian/debian-0.93/binary/x11/xbase-3.1.2-4.deb
 ax25-util
 tin
 hyperlatex
 psnfss

installation script returned error exit status 1.
Press RETURN to continue.



I think it's strange that dselect presumes that emacs is installed, when in fact it is not.

[As an aside, to attempt to fix this problem, I de-selected emacs, removed it, then re-selected
emacs to attempt to force its installation.  This didn't change anything.]

Then again, maybe this isn't a problem with dselect, here's what dpkg --status emacs has to say:

Package: emacs
Status: install ok config-files
Priority: standard
Section: editors
Maintainer: Ian Murdock <imurdock@debian.org>
Version: 19.29
Revision: 1
Depends: emacs-nox | emacs-x
Optional: emacs-el
Conffiles:
 /etc/site-start.el 67336a514b5873eea3341fb5421182b4
Description: The GNU Emacs editor.
 GNU Emacs is the extensible self-documenting text editor.

On the third hand, when I select emacs I'm not taken into a recursive package listing
to select emacs-nox or emacs-x, so maybe the problem is with dselect...

[I had removed emacs-x on the assumption that the emacs distribution had been
upgraded such that it didn't make a distinction between -x and -nox -- I thought
there'd been a change such that the X libs were included in base and all
-x -nox package pairs had been simplified...]

-- 
Raul