Public bug reported: I came across this when trying to fix an installation (broken by "apt- get dist-upgrade") by reinstalling its desktop metapackage (which apt had removed, in order to remove its dependencies and install conflicting packages that were neither packages I requested or dependencies thereof, but that's a different problem).
I tried "aptitude install ubuntukylin-desktop" aptitude suggested a variety of solutions to the conundrum apt had created, none of which involved installing the package I asked for. Even after trying one, thinking I might be able to install it on a second pass, aptitude continued to make suggestions that excluded the possibility of installing the one single package I asked for. In the end it took three passes--cycling through half a dozen suggestions each time--and I will spend the next several hours trying to figure out what was broken in the process (numerous unrelated packages were forcibly removed by aptitude). My particular case will not be reproducible as it depends on my package selections and resulted from apt making a terrible, random mess of a dist-upgrade. You don't have to reproduce my particular case to verify the problem. You don't need any of my configuration files. The problem is that aptitude is *capable* of suggesting solutions that do not include the single package it was asked to install. If a user asks aptitude to install a single package, it should look for a solution that results in installing that package and not otherwise. ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.10 Package: aptitude 0.7-1ubuntu1.1 Uname: Linux 4.1.0-pf1+ i686 ApportVersion: 2.19.1-0ubuntu2 Architecture: i386 Date: Sat Oct 10 22:36:06 2015 InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-12-30 (284 days ago) InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Kylin 14.04.1 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release i386 (20140722.1) JournalErrors: No journal files were found. -- No entries -- SourcePackage: aptitude UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) ** Affects: aptitude (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New ** Tags: apport-bug i386 third-party-packages wily -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1504788 Title: aptitude is capable of suggesting solutions that do not include installing the specifically requested package To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/aptitude/+bug/1504788/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs