Warty to Hoary Preview upgrade report

[Ming Hua]

On Sun, Mar 20, 2005 at 09:14:42AM -0800, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 20, 2005 at 12:49:36AM -0600, Ming Hua wrote:
> 
> > I downloaded hoary preview CD, and used apt-cdrom to add it to
> > /etc/apt/sources.list.  I kept my warty and warty-security archive line
> > in sources.list (this may be a problem, see below about my kernel), and
> > ran aptitude.  Aptitude labeled a lot of packages to be upgraded, and I
> > just upgraded all of them (there were no broken packages).
> 
> It's generally best to replace Warty with Hoary, rather than having both in
> sources.list simultaneously.

Yes, as Eric Dunbar also pointed out in private mail, now I realise this
is a mistake, I should have read documents more carefully.

[snipped]

> > 3. After the upgrade, aptitude labels some (uninstalled, mostly python)
> > packages broken due to 2.3->2.4 transition, but most of them are solved
> > after I add hoary archive to my sources.list again and upgraded.
> 
> Again?  Did you remove it?

Hmm, I was changing my sources.list back and forth, so I wrote ``again''
in the mail, it shouldn't be there.  Anyway, I mean upgrade to hoary
preview CD would get some packages broken (wrong dependency), but
upgrade to hoary archive at archive.ubuntu.com fixes most of them.

> > However today after update I still have one broken dependency:
> > libgal2.2-1 is getting upgraded from 2.2.3-0ubuntu1 to
> > 2.2.3ubuntu1-1ubuntu1 (the version looks funny by the way), both
> > recommends libgal2.2-common, but only libgal2.2-common 2.2.3-0ubuntu1 is
> > available, and it depends on exactly libgal2.2-1 (= 2.2.3-0ubuntu1).
> > Also, libgal2.2-1 is not depended by anything and it seems hoary has
> > libgal2.4-0, so I wonder why is there a new libgal2.2-1 package.
> 
> libgal2.2-common was in main in Warty, and moved out to universe for Hoary.
> What do you mean when you say it is broken?  libgal2.2 should be upgraded at
> the expense of libgal2.2-common, which should be removed.

But not this one.  Now I have only hoary in my sources.list:
    $ grep "^[^#]" /etc/apt/sources.list
    deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary main restricted
and after ``sudo aptitude update'' I have the following situation:
    $ aptitude show libgal2.2-1
    Package: libgal2.2-1
    State: installed [held]
    Automatically installed: no
 -> Version: 2.2.3ubuntu1-1ubuntu1
    ...
 -> Recommends: libgal2.2-common
and
    $ aptitude show libgal2.2-common
    Package: libgal2.2-common
    State: installed [held]
    Automatically installed: yes
 -> Version: 2.2.3-0ubuntu1
    ...
 -> Depends: libgal2.2-1 (= 2.2.3-0ubuntu1)

With your explanation, I know what happened.  First just some
clarification:  The version shown for libgal2.2-1 is the one in archive,
but I had 2.2.3-0ubuntu1 installed (from warty), and the version for
libgal2.2-common is the one of my locally installed (from warty and
obseleted), since I don't have universe in my sources.list.

So now the problem is:  One use upgrades from warty to hoary.  He never
uses universe, and he has libgal2.2-1 installed (and libgal2.2-common
since libgal2.2-1 recommends it).  In hoary libgal2.2-1 is upgraded in
main, and libgal2.2-common is moved to universe.  So aptitude now sees a
new libgal2.2-1 (which still recommends libgal2.2-common), but no new
libgal2.2-common.  Since aptitude will install recommended packages by
default, it will keep libgal2.2-common to satisfy libgal2.2-1's
dependency.  However the only libgal2.2-common it sees is the old one
from warty, which depeneds on libgal2.2-1 (= 2.2.3-0ubuntu1).  So
aptitude can't upgrade libgal2.2-1 to the new version in hoary, and
labels it as broken.

Of course I know many ways to solve this -- just remove libgal2.2-1, or
tell aptitude ignore recommends, or just add the universe in
sources.list.  But does a main package recommending a universe package
makes sense?  Aptitude will have problem if you don't have universe in
sources.list, by default configuration.  If synaptic doesn't have the
same settings for recommends, then this may be not a big problem.  If
synaptic also satisfies recommends by default, though, I bet this will
confuse many new users.

> Multiple versions of library packages are often maintained in parallel in
> order to provide for smooth transitions.  This is normal.
> 
> > 4. Many python2.3 packages and a few library packages are labeled
> > obselete by aptitude now.  I know they are there because they are not in
> > hoary anymore, and aptitude didn't label them ``automatic dependency''.
> > I am not sure what a synaptic upgrade will result, and I know tools like
> > deborphan, but does ubuntu team aims at removing obselete and unused
> > programs during upgrade?
> 
> We do not currently have a convenient facility for doing this automatically.
> Of course you can do this by pressing '-' or '_' on the section header in
> aptitude.

Yes I know that.  What I did for my Debian system is to label all the
library packages as ``automaticly installed'' after a minial base
installation, and use aptitude to install everything else.  This way
aptitude take care of all the library transition for me, and I never
bothered to learn deborphan. :-)

Thanks,
Ming
2005.03.20