Package: apt Followup-For: Bug #229775 X-Debbugs-Cc: Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues <jo...@debian.org>, David Kalnischkies <da...@kalnischkies.de>
Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues: > It feels to me like what you are describing as a bug is like saying that dash > is buggy because it does not support arrays David Kalnischkies: > All that small incomplete sentence in the summary section of the manpage > provides is that a solver *might* deviate from installing the highest > version Thank you for lengthy answers. Okay, then please apply the following patch. :) (Or something with similar meaning.) Feel free to close the bug when the patch is released. (Sent using "reportbug", so I hope whitespace is okay.) diff --git a/doc/apt_preferences.5.xml b/doc/apt_preferences.5.xml index 1b38ae1..1478770 100644 --- a/doc/apt_preferences.5.xml +++ b/doc/apt_preferences.5.xml @@ -39,12 +39,21 @@ for installation.</para> the &sources-list; file contains references to more than one distribution (for example, <literal>stable</literal> and <literal>testing</literal>). APT assigns a priority to each version that is available. -Subject to dependency constraints, <command>apt-get</command> selects the +<command>apt-get</command> selects the version with the highest priority for installation. The APT preferences override the priorities that APT assigns to package versions by default, thus giving the user control over which one is selected for installation.</para> +If picking the version with the highest priority leads to violation +of dependency constraints, then <emphasis>sometimes</emphasis> +apt chooses low-priority correct version instead of high-priority +incorrect one. But sometimes apt simply fails with an error message +in such situation, and this is not considered a bug. If you want package +manager to always choose low-priority correct version instead of +high-priority incorrect version in such situation, then use other package +managers instead of apt. + <para>Several instances of the same version of a package may be available when the &sources-list; file contains references to more than one source. In this case <command>apt-get</command> downloads the instance listed
