[hardy] dist-upgrade removes a lot of (non-)obsolete packages

[Henry Wertz]

Binary package hint: update-manager

     I have a bare copy of Ubuntu 7.10 in a qemu disk image that I tried this on (bare as in I haven't installed extra packages or reconfigured it at all.) I fired up update-manager to make sure it was up to date (it was, as of 7 Jan 2008). I then ran "sudo update-manager -d". First time, I didn't pay attention to what it was removing, and the result is VERY bare. The games were gone, all but the word processor gone, firefox was gone, and the desktop was a solid orange/tan color rather than having any desktop image. After reverting to a 7.10 image again and looking at what it's doing, it currently wants to remove as obsolete:

beforelight, bitmap, firefox, firefox-gnome-support, gnome-cards-data, gnome-games, gnome-games-data, hal-device-manager, ico, libbrlapi1, libcdio6, libchromexvmc1, libchromexvmcpro1, libgpod2, libmtp6, libntfs-3g12, libopencdk8, libpt-plugins-alsa, libtotem-plparser7, libuniconf4.3, libwvstreams4.3-base, libwvstreams4.3-extras, linux-headers-2.6.22-14, linux-headers-2.6.22-14-generic, openoffice.org (and openoffice.org-calc, -draw, -evolution, -gnome, -gtk, -impress, -java-common, -math), ubufox, xf86dga, and xgc.

     Oddly this list doesn't match the list of packages to be removed when it asks "Do you want to start the upgrade?" (I assume that's odd at least -- but I don't know, maybe the obsolete packages are found in a seperate sweep.)

     Well, no comment on the libraries, but firefox, gnome-games, and openoffice.org-* shouldn't be removed for sure (oddly, the word processor is not removed, just all the rest.)

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Thanks for your bugreport.

I can confirm this behavior in a test-environment. For some reason those packages get marked as "obsolete".

Thanks,
 Michael

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

It turns out the reason for this is that those packages are newer in gutsy than in harder, e.g. firefox:

hardy 2.0.0.10+2nobinonly-0ubuntu2
gutsy 2.0.0.6+2nobinonly-0ubuntu1
 security 2.0.0.11+2nobinonly-0ubuntu0.7.10
 updates 2.0.0.11+2nobinonly-0ubuntu0.7.10

This confuses the upgrader.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package update-manager - 1:0.87.1

---------------
update-manager (1:0.87.1) hardy; urgency=low

  * UpdateManager/UpdateManager.py:
    - fix crash if /var/lib/apt/periodic/update-stamp does not exists
      (LP: #181390)
    - fix misleading string when cache is rebuild (LP: #179354)
  * DistUpgrade/DistUpgradeCache.py:
    - be more careful with the obsoletes checking and get not
      confused if the hardy version is older than the gutsy one
      (LP: #181201)

 -- Michael Vogt <email address hidden> Wed, 09 Jan 2008 09:53:33 +0100