Source: debci Version: 3.13 Severity: normal The Request Test facility for debci (the web page at https://ci.debian.net/user/$USER/test ) allows pinning packages, in order to run tests using specified packages from experimental, for instance.
But pinning does not force installation of the given package. This makes it difficult to run tests using alternatives for the packages. A current example is slepc4py, which uses liblapack3 (via libslepc-real3.24) lapack3, like libblas3, has alternatives. There is a common API, and different optimised implementations. The generic reference build is from src:lapack and liblapack-dev. One of the optimised implementations is src:openblas (e.g. dev package libopenblas-pthread-dev) Packages like libslepc-real3.24 that use lapack declare the dependency Depends: liblapack3 | liblapack.so.3 liblapack3 is the generic reference build from src:lapack, and optimised implementations like src:openblas use Provides: liblapack.so.3 e.g. libopenblas0-pthread Provides: liblapack.so.3 Most of the time slepc4py tests access the first alternative, the generic liblapack3 package, and pass. A recent passing test on ppc64el is https://ci.debian.net/packages/s/slepc4py/testing/ppc64el/68414968/ But recent slepc4py tests in testing were using libopenblas0 0.3.30+ds-3+b1 instead of liblapack3, and failing. A sample failing test log is https://ci.debian.net/packages/s/slepc4py/testing/ppc64el/68333289/ I don't know why britney was installing libopenblas0 (and libopenblas-pthread-dev) instead of liblapack3 (and liblapack-dev), but it's permitted by the alternatives in the dependencies. I reported the apparent openblas bug in Bug#1126688 and openblas 0.3.31+ds-1 has been uploaded to experimental. What I would like now from debci is to use "Request Test" to request a test of slepc4py on ppc64el using the new openblas package (libopenblas-pthread-dev 0.3.31+ds-1) from experimental. I can pin "libopenblas-pthread-dev, experimental". But since openblas is only an alternative dependency, not a mandatory dependency, it does not get selected and does not (usually) get installed for the slepc4py test. I tried in https://ci.debian.net/packages/s/slepc4py/unstable/ppc64el/68414867/ (with experimental) and https://ci.debian.net/packages/s/slepc4py/unstable/ppc64el/68414866/ (libopenblas-pthread-dev, unstable) but both cases installed liblapack3 not libopenblas0. It would be useful to be able to "Request Test" forcing installation of the indicated packages. This could be a separate or additional option to simply pinning the packages.
