[vox-tech] Debian Unstable - apt strangeness

[Matt Roper]

On Fri, Aug 13, 2004 at 07:39:21PM -0400, David Hummel wrote:
> From: David Hummel <dhml at comcast.net>
> To: lugod's technical discussion forum <vox-tech at lists.lugod.org>
> Subject: Re: [vox-tech] Debian Unstable - apt strangeness
> Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2004 19:39:21 -0400
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> On Fri, Aug 13, 2004 at 04:17:38PM -0700, Matt Roper wrote:
> > 
> > I have no idea why dselect throws all the apt information into the
> > dpkg database instead of just working from the apt database directly;
> > it's certainly non-intuitive and breaks the whole apt/dpkg layering
> > scheme.
> 
> Interesting, I've never used dselect, and the apt package info still
> winds up in the dpkg databases.

I believe (although I'm not positive) that the Woody installers did the
equivalent of a 'dselect update' at the end of the installation, even if
you didn't ask to run dslect at the end of the install process.  Maybe
the apt info in your dpkg database is from back when you first
installed.  If this is the case, the actual package versions listed for
your uninstalled packages are probably way out of date.

It's possible that other package managers (aptitude, synaptic, etc.)
also have this behavior, but I've never used them so I don't know.  Have
you ever fired up one of these or have you used nothing but apt since
installation?

I know that apt-get by itself won't touch /var/lib/dpkg/available, but
I'm not sure what other tools will.  It's not very well documented in
the manpages.


Matt

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