Hi, There are two problems behind this. First, dist-upgrade do not seem to make the good choice about which package to remove (I think this comes from the fact that 'tar' creates the problem, but 'tar' is essential). However it would make more sense to keep back tar than to remove the kernel! The dependency is bug #120884 from the tar package, that is already fixed in unstable. However the fix is a new cpio package, and the new tar package has been moved into testing before it. I believe this is a problem with the program that decides which package to move to testing. I think this additional rule would improve the situation:
If 'pkg1' contains "Conflicts: pkg2 (<= version)" And 'pkg2' has a version higher than 'version' in unstable, then 'pkg1' should not move into testing before 'pkg2'. The workaround now is not to upgrade 'tar', until the newer version of cpio makes it into testing. Daniel
