On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 02:50:11PM +0200, Bill Allombert wrote: > On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 10:43:47PM +0200, Agustin Martin wrote: > > On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 05:18:28PM +0200, Bill Allombert wrote: > > > Package: iamerican > > > Version: 3.1.20.0-4.5 > > > Severity: important > > > > > > Hello David, > > > > > > There is a circular dependency between iamerican and ispell: > > > > > > iamerican :Depends: ispell > > > ispell :Depends: iamerican > > > > > > Circular dependencies are known to cause problems during upgrade, so we > > > should try to get rid of them. > > > > > > See threads > > > http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/06/msg02111.html > > > http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/11/msg01101.html > > > > Hi, Bill, > > > > Note that here there is not a straighforward circular dependency, ispell > > depends on > > > > iamerican | ispell-dictionary > > > > not on iamerican alone, so iamerican is present just as a preference (and > > provides ispell-dictionary, as well as all other ispell dictionaries). > > > > Is this also a problem? > > Yes: consider a user which have both iamerican and ispell installed and > upgrade to Squeeze: dpkg needs to upgrade both at the same time. The fact > that other options exist is not relevant here.
Hmm, no. dpkg can perfectly upgrade first one and then the other one. For upgrade to squeeze, dependency is not on a given version. That is however true in first installation, where dpkg needs to install both at the same time. If you mean that in a major upgrade dpkg will have to select which one is to be configured first, what needs to be ensured is that ispell or ispell dictionaries configuration does not depend on the other being already configured, but just being unpacked. I am aware that this is beyond what 'depends' strictly means, but there is no 'depends-unpacked' dependency. > Maybe you should only recommend iamerican | ispell-dictionary ? Note that I am not ispell maintainer. Regarding the use of recommends, ispell is useless without any dictionary. However I do not expect anyone installing ispell with a randomly chosen dictionary just to match the dependency, but rather install a specific dictionary pulling ispell because of the dependency. So, besides the fact that removing all ispell dictionaries will not automatically ask to remove ispell itself, your suggestion of using recommends seems the lesser evil. I am however unsure that in this particular case the circular dependency is a real problem for dpkg itself, but if using 'recommends' is of help, even if only for testing scripts, is a way to go. Regards, PS: Thanks for taking care of the cicular dependencies. -- Agustin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected]
