[Bug 831768] Re: aptitude cannot handle conflicts with multiarch enabled

[Darxus]

I decided I don't need aptitude anymore.  Thought this info might be
useful for others here.  Of course, aptitude should still be fixed.

I only used aptitude because I knew if I installed a package, and it
automatically installed dependencies, then I uninstalled that package,
it would also uninstall its dependencies.  When I started using
aptitude, apt-get couldn't do that.  I basically never use the ncurses
interface of aptitude anymore.

It turns out that "apt-get remove" provides that same functionality of
removing automatically installed dependencies.  Both dependencies that
were installed via aptitude, and apt-get.  Handling of dependencies
installed by aptitude was addded "~4 years ago... when apt started
having a notion of autoinstalled packages". - #ubuntu-devel

The devel channel also said that autoremove also works for dependencies
installed by all the gui package management software:  software-center,
update-manager, and synaptic, because they use libapt.  So I can stop
avoiding using those, which is nice.

You need to use "autoremove" instead of "remove" because apparently
somebody thought that was bad default behavior.  I'd like something
shorter to type than "autoremove".

And, as I guess has been mentioned earlier in this bug, the aptitude
resolver is kind of icky.

Here's the evidence autoremove works:

# lsb_release -c
Codename:	oneiric

# aptitude install clisp
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  clisp libffcall1{a} 
0 packages upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

# apt-get autoremove clisp
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  clisp libffcall1
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 0 not upgraded.


# apt-get install clisp
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libffcall1
Suggested packages:
  clisp-doc clisp-dev slime
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  clisp libffcall1
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

# apt-get autoremove clisp
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  clisp libffcall1
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/831768

Title:
  aptitude cannot handle conflicts with multiarch enabled

Status in aptitude:
  Unknown
Status in “aptitude” package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged
Status in “aptitude” source package in Oneiric:
  Triaged
Status in “aptitude” source package in Precise:
  Triaged
Status in Baltix GNU/Linux:
  New
Status in “aptitude” package in Debian:
  Unknown

Bug description:
  TEST CASE:
  1. Enable multiarch (should be automatic on new oneiric systems)
  2. Install an i386 package on amd64 (like flashplugin-installer:i386)
  3. Mark something with a lot of dependencies for installation
  4. On the confirmation screen, try to remove on of the dependencies (aptitude will now fail to perform upgrades when there's a package conflict w/out removing the i386 libs)

  This renders aptitude painful on a multiarch enabled system (default
  in oneiric).

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
  Package: aptitude 0.6.4-1ubuntu2
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-9.12-generic 3.0.3
  Uname: Linux 3.0.0-9-generic x86_64
  Architecture: amd64
  Date: Tue Aug 23 00:28:38 2011
  ProcEnviron:
   PATH=(custom, no user)
   LANG=C
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: aptitude
  UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-03-06 (169 days ago)

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