Your message dated Fri, 17 Jul 2026 00:05:34 +0200
with message-id <20260717000534.3e346133@crunch>
and subject line Re: Bug#1123537: apt-listbugs: feature request: pin package
because of bug not listed as affecting that package
has caused the Debian Bug report #1123537,
regarding apt-listbugs: feature request: pin package because of bug not listed
as affecting that package
to be marked as done.
This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.
(NB: If you are a system administrator and have no idea what this
message is talking about, this may indicate a serious mail system
misconfiguration somewhere. Please contact [email protected]
immediately.)
--
1123537: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1123537
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact [email protected] with problems
--- Begin Message ---
Package: apt-listbugs
Version: 0.1.47
Severity: wishlist
Dear Maintainer,
This is a request for a feature addition which I would find helpful in
infrequent, but recurring, contexts.
I occasionally run into a situation in which apt-listbugs shows a bug
against a particular package, but in order to enable apt to find a
dependency resolution which will permit carrying out other upgrades
without deciding to remove the affected package, it is necessary to pin
one or more other packages (either instead of, or in addition to, the
affected package) - ones which do not have the bug listed against them.
Usually, though I think not always, this results from the bug having
been filed against - if not necessarily the *wrong* package - at least
not the most optimal choice from among the involved packages. In some of
those cases it would probably be most ideal to fix the problem by
reassigning the bug and/or changing the list of what packages it
affects; however, this is not always practical, e.g. for social /
political reasons.
I have occasionally tried to deal with this by manually pinning the
"correct" package (the one(s) which will enable dependency processing to
find an appropriate solution, without either hitting an
impossible-situation-requested deadlock or trying to remove the pinned
package in order to upgrade other packages). That typically works in the
short term, but not in the long term; if I pin the package using
apt-listbugs' interactive interface, apt-listbugs then detects "oh, this
package doesn't have this bug open against it" and removes the pin on
the next automatic check, and if I pin it entirely manually, I don't get
the benefit of apt-listbugs being able to detect when the bug has been
fixed.
In cases where this happens, I would like to be able to use
apt-listbugs' interactive interface to say "pin package X because of bug
Y" - even when that bug does not have metadata showing that it has any
relation to that package - and see apt-listbugs first create the pin
entry in the preferences file, and then understand that "when this bug
is fixed, this pin can be removed", even though the bug is not formally
against the pinned package(s).
This is essentially the ability to say "treat package X as affected by
bug Y, and pin that package accordingly", in response to apt-listbugs'
"Are you sure you want to install/upgrade the above packages?" prompt.
Currently, it is possible to pin packages listed as affected by a
specified bug number, or pin specified packages by name - but the former
does not always identify the optimal package(s) to pin, and using the
latter to pin packages not listed as affected by the bugs leads to the
pin being automatically removed in the next check cycle.
I cannot be absolutely positive that there is not already a way to do
this, but I have not managed to find one in the apt-listbugs UI or
documentation.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: forky/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (900, 'testing'), (800, 'stable'), (500, 'testing-debug'), (500,
'stable-security')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386
Kernel: Linux 6.16.12+deb14+1-amd64 (SMP w/12 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: sysvinit (via /sbin/init)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled
Versions of packages apt-listbugs depends on:
ii apt 3.1.12
ii distro-info 1.13
ii ruby 1:3.3+b1
ii ruby-debian 0.3.10+b13
ii ruby-gettext 3.4.9-1
ii ruby-soap4r 2.0.5-9
ii ruby-unicode 0.4.4.5-1+b2
ii ruby-xmlparser 0.7.3-6+b1
Versions of packages apt-listbugs recommends:
ii ruby-httpclient 2.8.3+git20211122.4658227-1
ii ruby-sys-proctable 1.3.0-1
Versions of packages apt-listbugs suggests:
ii chromium [www-browser] 143.0.7499.109-1
ii dillo [www-browser] 3.0.5-7.2
ii elinks [www-browser] 0.18.0-2
ii firefox-ajbesr [www-browser] 52.9.0esr-1ajb1
ii links [www-browser] 2.29-2+b4
ii lynx [www-browser] 2.9.2-2
ii reportbug 13.2.0
ii sensible-utils 0.0.26
ii w3m [www-browser] 0.5.3+git20230121-2.1
ii xdg-utils 1.2.1-2
-- no debconf information
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
On Thu, 18 Dec 2025 12:31:21 +0100 Francesco Poli wrote:
[...]
> I don't think there's a way to do this with apt-listbugs.
>
> But I think (for reasons similar to those explained in the FAQ about
> the "affects" field) that the best way to address these (infrequent)
> cases is to correct/improve the data in the Debian BTS.
> This also has the advantage to fix things for all users, rather than
> implementing a complicated strategy in apt-listbugs that would enable
> each user to work around incorrect/incomplete data in the BTS.
>
> I hope I explained myself clearly enough.
As I said some time ago, this is not something that should be worked
around by apt-listbugs.
I am closing the bug report now.
Bye and thanks anyway for caring about apt-listbugs!
--
http://www.inventati.org/frx/
There's not a second to spare! To the laboratory!
..................................................... Francesco Poli .
GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82 3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE
pgpFkqu0vERm8.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
--- End Message ---
