Broken APT -- how to fix this?

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Sun, 2022-12-04 at 13:33 +0000, Colin Watson wrote:
> Perhaps; there are various reasons why files might have been moved
> between packages, not all of which involve completely renaming a
> package.

Hi,

what's your point? "I'm afraid this is nonsense", since the package with
the files has got a different name, in this case there is no other
reason. In this case the many packages marked for removal were evidently
replaced by a few packages with different names.

I might be mistaken, but this at least is the most reasonable
explanation. Take a look at the original posted log.

> > To work around such a dependency cycle, the maintainers of the third
> > party repository probably should have used transitional packages.
> 
> I'm afraid this is nonsense.  Transitional packages are of no help for
> moving files between packages; the correct solution normally involves
> the Replaces field.

Your tone of voice is inappropriate. A dummy package, what ever you call
it, could work around such a dependency cycle. It's not that unlikely,
that the replace field is the reason for the issue.

My impression is, that in the first place something was split into
several packages and now it is merged into less packages. Again, I might
be mistaken, but actually this is how it does look like to me.

If I should be mistaken my reasoning still makes more sense, than your
claim that there are "various reasons why files might have been moved"
and "not all of which involve completely renaming a package". What other
reason do you see in [1]?

Regards,
Ralf

[1]
On Wed, 2022-11-30 at 13:18 -0500, Robert Heller wrote:
> [snip]
> Here is the log:
> 
> WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts.
> 
> Reading package lists...
> Building dependency tree...
> Reading state information...
> Correcting dependencies... Done
> The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
>   mxe-i686-w64-mingw32.static-blas mxe-i686-w64-mingw32.static-cblas
>   mxe-i686-w64-mingw32.static-lapack mxe-i686-w64-mingw32.static-libidn
>   mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-autoconf mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-automake
>   mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-cloog mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-cmake
>   mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-geoip-database
>   mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-gettext mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-gmp
>   mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-googlemock
>   mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-googletest mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-isl
>   mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-libiconv mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-libtool
>   mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-lzma mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-m4
>   mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-mpc mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-mpfr
>   mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-mxe-conf mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-patch
>   mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-pkgconf mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-protobuf
>   mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-ragel mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-ucl
>   mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-upx mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-waf
>   mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-yasm mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-zlib scons
> Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
> The following additional packages will be installed:
>   mxe-x86-64-pc-linux-gnu-cmake-conf mxe-x86-64-pc-linux-gnu-mxe-conf
> The following NEW packages will be installed:
>   mxe-x86-64-pc-linux-gnu-cmake-conf mxe-x86-64-pc-linux-gnu-mxe-conf
> 0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
> 143 not fully installed or removed.
> Need to get 0 B/17.1 kB of archives.
> After this operation, 106 kB of additional disk space will be used.
> Do you want to continue? [Y/n] (Reading database ... 
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> (Reading database ... 176772 files and directories currently installed.)
> Preparing to unpack .../mxe-x86-64-pc-linux-gnu-mxe-conf_1-bionic-build-2021-01-10_amd64.deb ...
> Unpacking mxe-x86-64-pc-linux-gnu-mxe-conf (1-bionic-build-2021-01-10) ...
> dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/mxe-x86-64-pc-linux-gnu-mxe-conf_1-bionic-build-2021-01-10_amd64.deb (--unpack):
>  trying to overwrite '/usr/lib/mxe/usr/bin/config.guess', which is also in package mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-mxe-conf 1-20170208
> Preparing to unpack .../mxe-x86-64-pc-linux-gnu-cmake-conf_1-bionic-build-2021-01-10_amd64.deb ...
> Unpacking mxe-x86-64-pc-linux-gnu-cmake-conf (1-bionic-build-2021-01-10) ...
> dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/mxe-x86-64-pc-linux-gnu-cmake-conf_1-bionic-build-2021-01-10_amd64.deb (--unpack):
>  trying to overwrite '/usr/lib/mxe/usr/share/cmake/modules/FindFreetype.cmake', which is also in package mxe-x86-64-unknown-linux-gnu-mxe-conf 1-20170208
> Errors were encountered while processing:
>  /var/cache/apt/archives/mxe-x86-64-pc-linux-gnu-mxe-conf_1-bionic-build-2021-01-10_amd64.deb
>  /var/cache/apt/archives/mxe-x86-64-pc-linux-gnu-cmake-conf_1-bionic-build-2021-01-10_amd64.deb
> E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)