Dear Jason, I think we've got a misunderstanding here... (no offense!)
Jason Gunthorpe wrote: > > apt-get wanted to install 9 *new*, (AFAICT) totally unrelated packages. > > I checked the reverse dependencies of these 9 packages, and the > > forward dependencies of the held-back and to-be-upgraded packages, > > but nothing pointed at any one of the 9 to-be-newly-installed packages! > > Use the -o debug::pkgproblemresolver=true option which will help you > determine why those packages were selected. Something on your system does > depend on them somehow or they would never have been selected. That's what I thought, too. But why would apt-get try to install these 9 packages (lib*, see below) *only as long* as /etc/apt/preferences contained the three "Pin" entries? I did *not* let apt-get install the 9 packages before removing the "Pin"s (and neither thereafter)! Nevertheless, apt-get *stopped* begging for these packages to be installed as soon as I removed the "Pin"s! For debugging purposes, I downgraded my "apache", "apache-common", "apache-doc", and "libapache-mod-ssl" pkgs to their prior versions, and restored the "Pin" entries in /e/a/p. This is the `apt-get -o debug::... -u dist-upgrade` transcript: | io:~> apt-get -u -o debug::pkgproblemresolver=true dist-upgrade | Reading Package Lists... Done | Building Dependency Tree... Done | Calculating Upgrade... Starting | Starting 2 | Investigating libapache-mod-perl | Package libapache-mod-perl has broken dep on apache-common | Considering apache-common 13 as a solution to libapache-mod-perl 3 | Holding Back libapache-mod-perl rather than change apache-common | Investigating apache-perl | Package apache-perl has broken dep on apache-common | Considering apache-common 13 as a solution to apache-perl -1 | Holding Back apache-perl rather than change apache-common | Investigating libapache-mod-ssl | Package libapache-mod-ssl has broken dep on apache | Considering apache 1 as a solution to libapache-mod-ssl 0 | Holding Back libapache-mod-ssl rather than change apache | Package libapache-mod-ssl has broken dep on apache-perl | Considering apache-perl -1 as a solution to libapache-mod-ssl 0 | Holding Back libapache-mod-ssl rather than change apache-perl | Or group keep for libapache-mod-ssl | Try to Re-Instate libapache-mod-ssl | Done | Done | The following NEW packages will be installed: | libdevel-symdump-perl libdigest-md5-perl libhtml-parser-perl | libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl libmime-base64-perl | libnet-perl liburi-perl libwww-perl | The following packages have been kept back | libapache-mod-ssl | 0 packages upgraded, 9 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not | upgraded. | Need to get 824kB of archives. After unpacking 2798kB will be used. | Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n | Abort. At least, that would explain why apt-get wants to install the 9 Perl-related lib pkgs, because "apache-perl" depends on "libapache-mod-perl" which depends on these. But then again, why on earth is apt-get "investigating" the "libapache-mod-perl" and "apache-perl" pkgs, which I don't have installed at all? | io:~> dpkg -l apache-perl libapache-mod-perl | Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold | | Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed | |/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uc=bad) | ||/ Name Version Description | +++-=========================-=========================-================= | pn apache-perl <none> (n/a) | pn libapache-mod-perl <none> (n/a) Julian.
