gmsh upgrade impossible - would remove octave-msh

[B Bobo]

After upgrading from Ubuntu 11.10 to 12.04, all the upgrades happened except for gmsh. It was not upgraded from version 2.5.0.dfsg-2 to 2.5.1~beta2~svn10.

Both Ubuntu Software Center and Synaptic are unable to upgrade this package automatically.

In synaptic, the package is listed as needing an upgrade, having a "!" symbol next to it, but clicking Mark All Upgrades fails to select gmsh for automatic upgrading.

If I manually select gmsh in synaptic, and try to upgrade, the additional required changes are

 To be removed:
     libhdf5-serial-1.8.4
     libhdf5-serial-dev
     octave-msh

 To be installed:
     lam-runtime
     lam4-dev
     libhdf5-lam-1.8.4
     libhdf5-lam-dev
     liblam4

However, I use octave-msh. It's useful. I don't want it uninstalled.

Is there a packaging issue in gmsh?

[Julian Taylor (jtaylor)]

gmsh only supports the default mpi (which is openmpi)
you cannot use it with lam

gmsh (2.5.0.dfsg-3) unstable; urgency=low
* Move mpi-default-bin from "Recommends" to "Depends". Closes: #605962

[B Bobo (yout-bobo123)]

Ok, thanks for adding the missing mpi-default-bin dependency.

But how does lam relate to the upgrade wanting to remove octave-msh? octave-msh is a very useful package and would prefer to keep it. Is there any reason why it can't be left installed?