Package: apt Version: 0.3.13 As part of a partial upgrade of my machine from more-or-less stable toward unstable, I installed a bunch of networking stuff, including the new netstd 'legacy package' plus others. This resulted in apt installing midentd for me. To see why it had done this, I tried a '--no-act remove', which usually conveniently lists all the packages that require the one you're trying to remove.
However, I got the following bizarre error: ===begin=== mnementh# apt-get --no-act remove midentd Reading Package Lists... Done Building Dependency Tree... Done Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that the package is simply not installable and a bug report against that package should be filed. The following information may help to resolve the situation: Sorry, but the following packages have unmet dependencies: netdiag: Depends: netstd but it is not installed E: Sorry, broken packages mnementh# dpkg -s netdiag Package: netdiag Status: install ok installed Installed-Size: 267 Maintainer: Philip Hands <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Version: 0.6-3.2 Depends: libc6, libncurses4, netbase, netstd Description: Net-Diagnostics (trafshow,strobe,netwatch,statnet,tcpspray) [snip] mnementh# dpkg -s netstd Package: netstd Status: install ok installed Priority: standard Section: net Installed-Size: 52 Maintainer: Herbert Xu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Version: 3.07-16 Depends: bootpc, ftp, rsh-client, rusers, tftp, ruptime, fping, rdist, traceroute, rwhod , rwho, finger, rwall, icmpinfo, rdate, ftp-server | ftpd, midentd | oidentd | pidentd, cfingerd | efingerd | ffingerd | xfingerd | fingerd Suggests: telnet, telnetd, rsh-server, bootparamd, routed, bootp, rusersd, tftpd, wdsetu p, rwalld Description: Legacy package that you should remove. This package exists only to provide smooth upgrades. Please remove it. ===endit=== (1) why is apt complaining about being unable to install things? I'm trying to *remove* packages, not install anything... (2) why does it think netstd isn't installed, when dpkg -s says it is? (3) why didn't it complain when doing the preceding "apt-get install traceroute netstd bison telnetd" if it thought the dependencies were mangled? Interestingly, if you ask apt to remove netstd, it allows you: ===begin=== mnementh# apt-get --no-act remove netstd Reading Package Lists... Done Building Dependency Tree... Done The following extra packages will be installed: netdiag The following packages will be REMOVED: netstd 1 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 202 not upgraded. Inst netdiag Remv netstd Conf netdiag ===endit=== I'll leave my machine in its current state for the moment so you can request config files or other information; I can't do this indefinitely, though :-> Peter Maydell
