On Thu, Apr 24, 2003 at 04:11:23PM +0200, Bernhard R. Link wrote: > * Henning Glawe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [030424 15:20]: > > When using FAI or a similar autoinstaller, many packages may be left > > unconfigure because of circular dependencies between openoffice.org > > packages. apt-get is called with a _long_ list of packages to install, > > which are partly fet unconfigured if one of them fails to configure. > > I do not see why circular dependencies should be a problem. An > dpkg --configure -a or a apt-get -f install should cause anything to > be configured, if any part failed. If anything fails to configure it > is this packages problem. but the problem is with non-interactive installs... I don't want to run from machine to machine because of a single error... FAI depends on a working apt and/or set of package to complete its task. as rene posted this is an apt problem...
> > besides such circular dependencies violate debian policy: > > Depends: blah > > in blubb means package blah has to be configured before configuration > > of blubb which is quite impossible if blah depends on blubb, though work > > sometimes; in these cases, dpkgs behaviour get chaotic: sometimes it > > works, sometimes not... > > Are you sure, you are not confusing dependencies and pre-dependencies? > (to quote policy 2.3.4: > Sometimes, a package requires another package to be installed *and* > configured before it can be installed. In this case, you must specify > a Pre-Depends entry for the package. > ) According to Policy 7.2: Depends This declares an absolute dependency. A package will not be configured unless all of the packages listed in its Depends field have been correctly configured. IMHO this _forbids_ circular dependencies, for them it is impossible to fullfill this condition. > Circular dependencies are quite a normal way to specifiy things to be > installed together. Though any part should be able to configure before > the other is configured. (This is true for any dependency and not only > circular ones.) > > Could you elaborate what goes wrong a bit more, so one can see what > is causing problems? the comment given by rene engelhard explains the problem pretty good. but according to 7.2 circular dependencies are forbidden, so you could say: "circular dependencies work in most cases"... -- c u henning
