[Pkg-ia32-libs-maintainers] Bug#535365: Bug#535365: ia32-apt-get: Should drop 32-bit version of type-handling

[Goswin von Brederlow]

Daniel Schepler <dschepler at gmail.com> writes:

> Package: ia32-apt-get
> Version: 20
> Severity: normal
>
> In a pbuilder amd64 chroot, after installing ia32-apt-get and doing an apt-get 
> update (unsetting DEBIAN_FRONTEND so that I could choose the "All" option in 
> the debconf prompt):
>
> frobozz:/tmp# dpkg-architecture
> DEB_BUILD_ARCH=amd64
> DEB_BUILD_ARCH_OS=linux
> DEB_BUILD_ARCH_CPU=amd64
> DEB_BUILD_GNU_CPU=x86_64
> DEB_BUILD_GNU_SYSTEM=linux-gnu
> DEB_BUILD_GNU_TYPE=x86_64-linux-gnu
> DEB_HOST_ARCH=amd64
> DEB_HOST_ARCH_OS=linux
> DEB_HOST_ARCH_CPU=amd64
> DEB_HOST_GNU_CPU=x86_64
> DEB_HOST_GNU_SYSTEM=linux-gnu
> DEB_HOST_GNU_TYPE=x86_64-linux-gnu
> frobozz:/tmp# apt-get install i386 
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree 
> Reading state information... Done
> Note, selecting type-handling instead of i386
> The following NEW packages will be installed:
> type-handling
> 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. 
> Need to get 6222B of archives. 
> After this operation, 69.6kB of additional disk space will be used.
> Get:1 http://ftp.egr.msu.edu sid-amd64/main type-handling 0.2.23 [6222B] 
> Fetched 6222B in 0s (9674B/s)
> debconf: delaying package configuration, since apt-utils is not installed
> Selecting previously deselected package type-handling.
> (Reading database ... 10982 files and directories currently installed.)
> Unpacking type-handling (from .../type-handling_0.2.23_amd64.deb) ...
> Setting up type-handling (0.2.23) ...
> frobozz:/tmp# apt-get install not+amd64
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information... Done
> Note, selecting type-handling instead of not+amd64
> type-handling is already the newest version.
> 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
>
> So having a 32-bit version of type-handling available to install seems to 
> defeat the whole purpose of the type-handling package.
> -- 
> Daniel Schepler

Actually I think you found a bug in apt:

Package: type-handling
Architecture: amd64
Version: 0.2.23
Provides: amd64, linux, linux-gnu, not+alpha, not+arm, not+armeb, not+bsd-darwin, not+bsd-freebsd, not+bsd-netbsd, not+bsd-openbsd, not+darwin, not+freebsd, not+gnu, not+gnu-hurd, not+gnu-kfreebsd, not+gnu-knetbsd, not+gnu-linux, not+gnueabi-linux, not+gnulp-linux, not+hppa, not+i386, not+i486, not+ia64, not+kfreebsd-gnu, not+knetbsd-gnu, not+linux-gnueabi, not+linux-gnulp, not+m32r, not+m68k, not+mips, not+mipsel, not+netbsd, not+openbsd, not+powerpc, not+powerpc64, not+ppc64, not+s390, not+s390x, not+sh3, not+sh3eb, not+sh4, not+sh4eb, not+solaris, not+sparc, not+sysv-solaris, x86-64-linux-gnu
Filename: pool/main/t/type-handling/type-handling_0.2.23_amd64.deb

Package: type-handling
Architecture: amd64
Version: 0.2.23~21
Provides: i386, i486-linux-gnu, linux, linux-gnu, not+alpha, not+amd64, not+arm, not+armeb, not+bsd-darwin, not+bsd-freebsd, not+bsd-netbsd, not+bsd-openbsd, not+darwin, not+freebsd, not+gnu, not+gnu-hurd, not+gnu-kfreebsd, not+gnu-knetbsd, not+gnu-linux, not+gnueabi-linux, not+gnulp-linux, not+hppa, not+ia64, not+kfreebsd-gnu, not+knetbsd-gnu, not+linux-gnueabi, not+linux-gnulp, not+m32r, not+m68k, not+mips, not+mipsel, not+netbsd, not+openbsd, not+powerpc, not+powerpc64, not+ppc64, not+s390, not+s390x, not+sh3, not+sh3eb, not+sh4, not+sh4eb, not+solaris, not+sparc, not+sysv-solaris
Filename: pool/main/t/type-handling/type-handling_0.2.23_i386.deb


'apt-get install i386' should install type-handling=0.2.23~21. Instead
it installs type-handling=0.2.23 which does NOT provide i386. So
unlike what the apt-get output might suggest you actually don't have
"i386" installed now and neither not+amd64. Which is what you want I
guess.

But ask ia32-apt-get to do something stupid and it will. If you
specifically say
  apt-get install type-handling=0.2.23~21
then you will get i386 and non+amd64. I think that is not a bug in
ia32-apt-get as you do have to specifically ask for it. I consider
that to be the same as rm allowing 'rm -rf /'.


I do agree however that type-handling does not do the right thing here
and will not do the right thing with mutliarch. I'm not really sure
what the right type-handling output for an amd64/i386 system would be
but I guess it should be something like

Provides: i386 amd64 not+i386 not+amd64 ...

The not+<cpu> syntax does not really make much sense when multiple
architectures are supported. The current type-handling does not
provides the "right" things in either the amd64 not the i386 deb for
such a system.

MfG
        Goswin