Upgrade to Edgy failing on X11R6 error

[Derek Broughton]

Dave M G wrote:

> Derek said:
>> I don't see that.  How is a packaging system to know that they're merely
>> help files, and can be safely trodden on without damaging anything?
> 
> I don't suppose a packaging system could know any such thing on it's own.
> 
> However, surely the people who make the packages could mark it in some
> way as to make it non-critical. Or at the least, make sure that they
> aren't part of a cyclic dependency. Or, if it's not possible for them to
> mark it as non-critical or protect the packages from cyclic
> dependencies, then the system is flawed.

_All_ systems are flawed.  This one much less than most :-)  I don't know
how you managed to get into this situation, but I've had similar things
happen (and never really known how _I_ got into the situation either!), but
it's rare, and generally quite easily fixed (not always so easily
diagnosed, as you've seen :-( ).
> 
> Mario said:
>> It is much better to read the output of apt-get and only force the
>> specific action that is blocking progress
>>   
> That is what I did, as described earlier. Eventually came to a point
> where apt-get no longer worked, and I had to force the packages out with
> dpkg.

Well, I don't share Mario's fear of --force-all.  You were told what
problems have been encountered, --force-all isn't going to give you any
surprises, and is a darn sight easier than remembering _which_ specific
force option you need.  Not to mention that purging a package _should_ be
forceable.  The worst that will happen is that it will remove a package
that's a dependency for something else.  apt will pick up on that next time
it's used.  It's not like forcing an install, where you may well overwrite
some other packages files.
-- 
derek