Hello Michael. The erroneous extra "hold" at the end of the string piped as a command to "dpkg --set-selections" results in the rejection to perform the whole command by the "dpkg".
E.g. we have the following "perl" packages "installed" and "selected for installation": debian:~# dpkg -l | grep "^....perl" ii perl 5.10.1-14 Larry Wall's Practical Extraction and Report Language ii perl-base 5.10.1-14 minimal Perl system ii perl-modules 5.10.1-14 Core Perl modules debian:~# And then we would like to mark those packages to be "on hold" (e.g. not to be upgraded by the "dpkg", "aptitude", ...): debian:~# echo -en "perl hold\nperl-base hold\nperl-modules hold\n" | dpkg --set-selections Everything is correct: debian:~# dpkg -l | grep "^....perl" hi perl 5.10.1-14 Larry Wall's Practical Extraction and Report Language hi perl-base 5.10.1-14 minimal Perl system hi perl-modules 5.10.1-14 Core Perl modules debian:~# Let's revert to the initial state: debian:~# echo -en "perl install\nperl-base install\nperl-modules install\n" | dpkg --set-selections debian:~# dpkg -l | grep "^....perl" ii perl 5.10.1-14 Larry Wall's Practical Extraction and Report Language ii perl-base 5.10.1-14 minimal Perl system ii perl-modules 5.10.1-14 Core Perl modules debian:~# Now if we added the erroneous extra "hold" at the end of the command, the "dpkg" refuses the whole command: debian:~# echo -en "perl hold\nperl-base hold\nperl-modules hold\n hold\n" | dpkg --set-selections dpkg: unexpected end of line in package name at line 4 debian:~# dpkg -l | grep "^....perl" ii perl 5.10.1-14 Larry Wall's Practical Extraction and Report Language ii perl-base 5.10.1-14 minimal Perl system ii perl-modules 5.10.1-14 Core Perl modules debian:~# It means that packages configured as "PACKAGES hold" in package_config files are not processed correctly. In general it breaks the following statement from "man install_packages": "install_packages is a Perl script written for FAI to selectively install, hold, remove, or purge packages or tasks." Thanks, Michael. On Sun, Oct 10, 2010 at 12:08 PM, Michael Tautschnig <m...@debian.org> wrote: > Hi Michael, > >> Hello, >> Is it possible that the following is valid: >> >> Index: bin/install_packages >> ... > > Thanks a lot for providing this patch and the additional info in further > responses in this thread. Could you also describe which problems this is > causing? > > Anyway, I have added your patch to the experimental series; it's included in > 4.0~beta2+experimental26. But I guess receiving further information on the > problems caused by this bug will increase the likelihood of the patch making > it > into trunk. > > Thanks again, > Michael