I might add, that I attempted to use Guillem's suggestion in that email.
I get borked at the whole: apt-cache dumpavail && dpkg --update-avail / --merge-avail How on earth is that even supposed to work? Doesn't seem to function here... On Sun, 21 Apr 2013 11:41:35 -0400 Brad Barnett <b...@l8r.net> wrote: > > Uh, yeah... great. > > Ok, so we have a regression that is "OK", because it is based on whether > a behaviour is technically correct. I've seen this bug for months and > months, but thought it was a well known bug that just wasn't resolved. > > In fact, I didn't even look for bug reports. I didn't even look on > forums when I first found out about the bug from a user perspective. I > just figure dpkg was *broken*, and of course someone would fix this > crazy bug! > > How could it be missed? There must already be a bug report on this, I > thought! > > You would not believe my level of astonishment, and the astonishment of > every single Debian admin I've discussed this with, when they were > informed that this non-documented, year old, planned and implemented > serious change of behaviour was intended?! > > Meanwhile, sysadmins all over the planet, most likely hundreds of > thousands of them, have been using this prior behaviour for more than a > decade. > > The man page does not document it. The suggestions to resolve it in: > > https://lists.debian.org/debian-dpkg/2012/03/msg00067.html > > by Guillem require that I install dselect, perform operations on it, > then install dctrl-tools, and perform more obtuse operations via those > tools. Tools that I will have to install on virtually every system, > when I did not require them before. > > A wonderful, elegant solution to system upgrades, that made me very > happy in bootstrapping at least 5000+ debian systems by hand over 10+ > years, has now become very annoying. > > No docs anywhere about it. No mention anywhere. No man page updates. > Nothing I noticed in any guides. No forethought to the consequences, > except "Well, this isn't technically correct, so screw everyone!" > > What is it about Debian, that has people running around with sticks up > their asses? Debian recently announced at how *PROUD* it was that one > can actually play multimedia files now, without having to go to > untrusted sources. > > Instead, let's replace that with the obfuscation of the entire > reinstall / bootstrapping of new systems, under the justification that > "It should be this way". > > It's like watching people that live in a bubble, or watching a rich > person wonder why the poor simply don't just work. Or why they are > hungry... why don't the poor just buy some food? > > This one single bug is going to cause a relentless flood of forum posts, > of users hitting debian's servers, of mailing list posts, of queries in > IRC channels.... the list goes on. > > Well, OK, so clearly stubbornness and the need ensure that things are > Right, even if they break workflow for the entire universe is going to > win out. So, if this behaviour is locked in, fine. > > Then would it be possible to get a warning in dpkg when --set-selections > is used? Or, how about we remove that command all together, and replace > it with another command? Or, add the functionality to apt directly? > > Is there any way around this silliness? I can count the number of > people that have used dselect for anything on one hand, apt is what the > majority of people use... > > So, can we at least get apt fixed? > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
