Guillem Jover <guil...@debian.org> writes:
> This was brought up on debian-devel, and I think it needs to be
> updated/corrected in the policy manual:
> On Fri, 2020-01-17 at 12:21:11 +0100, Guillem Jover wrote:
>> On Fri, 2020-01-17 at 11:12:50 +0100, Ansgar wrote:
>>> Policy states:
>>> "Removing a required package may cause your system to become totally
>>> broken and you may not even be able to use dpkg to put things back, so
>>> only do so if you know what you are doing."
>> That seems wrong, or inaccurate at best. dpkg should never depend on
>> anything that is not part of the pseudo-essential set (strictly
>> speaking only Essential:yes + awk-virtual), or that it depends on
>> explicitly. So as long as a package has not been forced out, dpkg must
>> work.
>> Removing a required package (that is not Essential:yes) might indeed
>> render your system broken, but what broken means or in what context is
>> not qualified there. This could apply to systems that get booted for
>> example, but not to chroots. A package that relies on another package
>> that is Priority:required and not Essential:yes, and that it does not
>> depend on, is just broken.
I agree with this analysis, and we shouldn't be saying things about dpkg
that aren't true.
What Policy says right now is:
Packages which are necessary for the proper functioning of the system
(usually, this means that dpkg functionality depends on these
packages). Removing a required package may cause your system to become
totally broken and you may not even be able to use dpkg to put things
back, so only do so if you know what you are doing.
Systems with only the required packages installed have at least enough
functionality for the sysadmin to boot the system and install more
software.
The second paragraph seems roughly correct. The first paragraph is
clearly at least partially false. What should it say instead? I'm not
sure the second paragraph is enough. I feel like we should stress that
you may put your system into a surprising state by removing required
packages, and may have difficulties recovering because standard tools are
missing, even though dpkg should continue to wrok.
Do you have any suggestions for what an accurate statement would be?
--
Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
