epiphany-browser should depend on epiphany-browser-data (purge problem)

[Savvas Radevic]

Binary package hint: epiphany-browser

Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex 8.10
epiphany-browser: 2.24.1-0ubuntu1

$ apt-cache depends epiphany-browser
epiphany-browser
 |Depends: epiphany-gecko
  Depends: epiphany-webkit

epiphany-browser should depend on epiphany-browser-data, otherwise there are dependencies left over:

$ sudo aptitude purge epiphany-browser

The following packages will be REMOVED:
  epiphany-browser{p}
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 77.8kB will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] y
Writing extended state information... Done
(Reading database ... 192727 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing epiphany-browser ...

$ sudo aptitude purge epiphany-browser-data

The following packages are BROKEN:
  epiphany-gecko
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  epiphany-browser-data{p}
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 15.5MB will be freed.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  epiphany-gecko: Depends: epiphany-browser-data (>= 2.22.1.1-3) but it is not installable
                  Depends: epiphany-browser-data (< 2.25) but it is not installable
The following actions will resolve these dependencies:

Remove the following packages:
epiphany-extensions
epiphany-gecko

Score is -532

Accept this solution? [Y/n/q/?] y
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  epiphany-browser-data{p} epiphany-extensions{a} epiphany-gecko{a}
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 3 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 20.7MB will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] y
Writing extended state information... Done
(Reading database ... 192718 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing epiphany-extensions ...
Removing epiphany-gecko ...
Processing triggers for menu ...
(Reading database ... 192499 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing epiphany-browser-data ...
Purging configuration files for epiphany-browser-data ...

[Evan R. Murphy (evanrmurphy)]

This does seem to be a strange issue, but it may be more complex than this bug report suggests.

First of all, it's important to note that epiphany-browser is actually a dummy package that depends on epiphany-gecko [1]. epiphany-gecko in turn carries epiphany-browser-data as one of its dependencies, so if you "sudo apt-get remove epiphany-gecko" and then "sudo apt-get autoremove", epiphany-browser-data does get autoremoved (after removing epiphany-gecko, epiphany-browser and epiphany-extensions). However, "sudo apt-get remove epiphany-browser" followed by "sudo apt-get autoremove" does not (auto)remove anything but epiphany-browser, so perhaps the real issue here is that epiphany-gecko doesn't realize it's only needed by epiphany-browser.

I'm going to send an email to the original maintainer of the package and ask for clarification. In the meantime, I'm setting the status of this bug report to In Progress.

[1] From the Description of epiphany-browser package in debian/control for epiphany-browser-2.26.1: "Intuitive web browser - dummy package [...] This dummy package installs Epiphany with the Gecko backend by default."

[Evan R. Murphy (evanrmurphy)]

s/original maintainer/mantainer/

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The issue seems rather a package management one which clean only part of the things installed automatically there

[David Stansby (dstansby-deactivatedaccount)]

What is the point in epiphany-browser if it's just a dummy package that depends on one other package? Unless it is a metapackage (with plans to make it depend on more packages in the future) then surely we could just get rid of epiphany-browser and make packages depend on epiphany-gecko.

Also, moving epiphany-browser-data up to depend on epiphany-browser would help to resolve this problem I presume.

[Evan R. Murphy (evanrmurphy)]

2009/7/17 David Stansby <email address hidden>:
> What is the point in epiphany-browser if it's just a dummy package that
> depends on one other package? Unless it is a metapackage (with plans to
> make it depend on more packages in the future) then surely we could just
> get rid of epiphany-browser and make packages depend on epiphany-gecko.

The situation is complicated by the fact epiphany-browser has a '|'
dependency on epiphany-webkit.

> Also, moving epiphany-browser-data up to depend on epiphany-browser
> would help to resolve this problem I presume.

Would you please elaborate on this idea, David? I'm not sure I
understand how it would help.

2009/7/16 Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden>:
> The issue seems rather a package management one which clean only part of
> the things installed automatically there

Sebastien, do you have any suggestions as to what I could do or who I
could contact to try and address this issue?

[Evan R. Murphy (evanrmurphy)]

2009/7/17 David Stansby <email address hidden>:
> What is the point in epiphany-browser if it's just a dummy package that
> depends on one other package? Unless it is a metapackage (with plans to
> make it depend on more packages in the future) then surely we could just
> get rid of epiphany-browser and make packages depend on epiphany-gecko.

The situation is complicated by the fact epiphany-browser has a '|'
dependency on epiphany-webkit.

> Also, moving epiphany-browser-data up to depend on epiphany-browser
> would help to resolve this problem I presume.

Would you please elaborate on this idea, David? I'm not sure I
understand how it would help.

2009/7/16 Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden>:
> The issue seems rather a package management one which clean only part of
> the things installed automatically there

Sebastien, do you have any suggestions as to what I could do or who I
could contact to try and address this issue?

[David Stansby (dstansby-deactivatedaccount)]

Sorry, I'm just looking at my previous comment and I've realised that it's a right mess. Feel free to disregard it completely. I'll draw up a dependancy tree sometime in the next 24hrs so I can get my head around what's going on, and report back when I'm done.

[David Stansby (dstansby-deactivatedaccount)]

I think the problem lies in the fact that epiphany-gecko, epiphany-browser-data are both binary packages created from the source package epiphany-browser.

[David Stansby (dstansby-deactivatedaccount)]

I don't think that I'm the right person to solve this, as I don't seem to understand the problem very well.

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

This is should be fixed in Lucid. Please report any other issues you may find.