[Multiarch-devel] Bug#770345: apt: package Provides are not treated as providing the package for all architectures

[David Kalnischkies]

On Thu, Nov 20, 2014 at 05:10:28PM +0100, Johannes Schauer wrote:
> I was just able to reproduce the problem spotted in #770301. Apt allows
> to install libbabl-dev for two different architectures and only errors

Well, I disagree, but I will follow the (other) thread and bend to the
will of Multi-Arch inventors if they have a different take on this…
(what follows is my take, which felt so "intuitive/natural" that
I realize only now that the spec isn't specifying any of this…)


libbabl-dev:i386 is not providing the same thing as libbabl-dev:amd64,
think: architecture specific header for example, so what you suggest in
the title would be breaking existing dependencies.

If you want this behaviour (which is probably more common than this -dev
case here) like for e.g. mail-transport-agent, just flag the package as
M-A: foreign.

Also as this -dev package is marked as M-A: same it should be possible
to co-install it with its other architecture siblings.
After all, what is the point of it being flagged M-A: same otherwise?


> out because dpkg (correctly) detects the conflict introduced by the
> Provides field.

APT (correctly) detects the conflict introduced by the Provides
field as a self-conflict and hence ignores it here.

You can notice this with an (imaginative) libbabl-alt-dev:i386 package
which isn't installable at the same time as libbabl-dev:amd64 as this is
a "real" conflict (even if it is crossing architecture boundaries).


Best regards

David Kalnischkies
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 819 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
URL: <http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/multiarch-devel/attachments/20141120/7f1449f5/attachment.sig>