ttf-mscorefonts-installer is trying to force me to agree eula

[Paulo Silva]

When i try to install packages via "sudo apt-get install" (and perhaps from synaptic as well), ttf-mscorefonts-installer appears as dependency, and it tries to force me to agree Microsoft’s EULA.

The fact is that i don’t agree with whatever licensing coming from Microsoft, which blocks any further upgrade, because apt gets blocked with the message "cannot configure (current status `half-installed')"

I think it is crucially important having the possibility of not agreeing with Microsoft’s EULA licensing - it’s quite annoying have to create a dummy package for replacing that

[Seth Arnold (seth-arnold)]

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. We appreciate the difficulties you are facing, but this appears to be a "regular" (non-security) bug. I have unmarked it as a security issue since this bug does not show evidence of allowing attackers to cross privilege boundaries nor directly cause loss of data/privacy. Please feel free to report any other bugs you may find.

[Seth Arnold (seth-arnold)]

I'm surprised you've run into this issue, I can't find anything that depends upon the ttf-mscorefonts-installer package:

$ apt-rdepends --reverse ttf-mscorefonts-installer
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
ttf-mscorefonts-installer

If this is correct you can probably just use apt pinning to forbid it: http://askubuntu.com/a/76075/33812

The apt pinning is probably easier than using equivs, but that really should work if something else Depends: upon the MS TTFs.

Thanks

[Paulo Silva (nitrofurano-z)]

thanks! that message from the terminal is shown because i actually pinned this package as -1

i only could solve this running "sudo dpkg -i" on an equivalent .deb package from Debian’s repository that doesn’t ask that EULA question (and i guess that this package will be removed from Debian repository as soon that situation appears there as appears from Ubuntu repository, because Debian’s politics) - and i use to run a kind of cleanup bash script that removes all these crappy typefaces

i can’t remember which packages uses ttf-mscorefonts-installer as dependency, this situation happened when i run this bash script in a fresh-install (Ubuntu 15.10 beta 2):

sudo apt-get install pommed chromium-browser conky-all gnome-color-chooser synaptic xvkbd
sudo apt-get install fluxbox jwm icewm wmaker wmclock docker fbpager
sudo apt-get install sdlbasic python-pygame radiotray pepperflashplugin-nonfree vlc bleachbit
sudo apt-get install caja engrampa pluma eom mate-terminal atril
sudo apt-get install mess mame openmsx fbzx stella fceu mednafen dgen
sudo apt-get install synaptic vlc gimp gimp-data gimp-plugin-registry gimp-data-extras
sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jre flashplugin-installer xchat hugin openshot
sudo apt-get install unace unrar zip unzip p7zip-full p7zip-rar sharutils rar uudeview mpack arj cabextract file-roller
sudo apt-get install flac faac faad sox ffmpeg2theora libmpeg2-4 uudeview mpeg3-utils mpegdemux
sudo apt-get install liba52-dev mpeg2dec vorbis-tools id3v2 mpg321 mpg123 libflac++6 totem-mozilla icedax
sudo apt-get install lame libmad0 libjpeg-progs libdvdread4 libdvdnav4 ubuntu-restricted-extras
sudo apt-get install trayer cortina cameramonitor wmsystemtray wmctrl
sudo apt-get install rrootage parsec47 tumiki-fighters torus-trooper dangen tenmado
sudo apt-get install build-essential git cmake libsdl1.2-dev libboost-dev

(perhaps it is from ubuntu-restricted-extras i use to install because codecs?)

i also think that wine has, almost for sure, ttf-mscorefonts-installer as dependency

[Paulo Silva (nitrofurano-z)]

for my surprise, after 2 years, this problem persists... i really wonder why... :(

do anyone know how can we create an empty .deb named ttf-mscorefonts-installer in a kind of "infinite" version? (so we wouldn’t be disturbed with that crap again) - the .deb from version still works, but it is painfully slow to install...

[Simon Quigley (tsimonq2)]

This is the intended functionality. If you don't want to have those fonts, you can uninstall the package...

[Paulo Silva (nitrofurano-z)]

The problem happens when you don’t agree with the eula license, you get totally stuck there.

There should be a way to be totally free on not agreeing with that license, free to block that package, and free to uninstall it. None of these possibilities exists now, and this is why it needs to be fixed.

It’s totally nonsense and crazy being forced to agree an obscure license just for bypassing this issue.

Seriously asking, please review the actual status and importance.

[Gianfranco Costamagna (costamagnagianfranco)]

apt-get remove --purge foo should work