On Tue, 2018-07-10 at 10:13 -0400, The Wanderer wrote: > If I were experiencing a similar situation, what I'd do is try to > simultaneously install both one of the packages that triggers the > cascade and one or more of the packages which the cascade wants to > remove, and keep adding packages to the install command until I get a > dependency-resolution failure. > > E.g., assuming that trying to upgrade 'vim' triggers the cascade and the > cascade wants to remove calibre, evolution, and pidgin: > > $ apt-get install vim calibre evolution pidgin > > (In case it wasn't obvious: an 'install' operation on an > already-installed package which has a newer available version triggers > an install of that newer version, i.e., an upgrade.) > > If you get a successful upgrade attempt which doesn't trigger the > cascade, you can let it proceed, then try the mass upgrade again. If the > mass upgrade still produces the cascade, you can repeat the > some-small-subset-of-packages manual install process. > > If on the other hand the manual install command *does* trigger the > cascade, you should cancel it and add more package names to the install > command. > > Keep repeating those two until either the cascade disappears from the > mass-upgrade attempt, or you get a "request cannot be fulfilled" > dependency-resolution failure. > > If the cascade disappears along the way, you're in good shape; just > complete the mass upgrade. (Unfortunately, this doesn't really help > figure out what caused the bug in the first place.) > > If you get a dependency-resolution failure, the packages involved should > give you a hint about which packages have dependency relationships which > are leading to the cascade.
This seems like a long work, but it's a path I did not think about, maybe I'll try this steps, thank you for the hint! > The next step involves looking at those packages and their dependency > relationships, and I can't describe the process very well without a > real-world example to hand. Yes, I know, but listing the hundreds and hundreds of packages involved can be annoying for the mailing list... :) > Once you've identified the dependency relationship which resulted in the > cascade, it's probably fairly straightforward to determine what bug > report to file and what package to file it against. If I'll manage to point the finger to the package that triggers all this mess, I'll do a bug report.
