evolution requires spamassassin

thank you for your bug report, you should maybe not start using unstable distributions so earlier in the cycle if you don't know how to use the package system and want to have something stable and not changing. the packaging tools have been changed in intrepid to install recommends by default now and that's why you get extra things installed, you can remove those once installed if you want or tweak the apt configuration to not install recommends, we will also review the recommends to not list things which are not really recommended, you started using intrepid really early which is good but that's an unstable distribution and work is going to be done there so don't expect it to be perfect right now, the recommends lists will be cleaned during the cycle, closing since that's not a bug

Sebastian,

Thanks for the explanation - glad to know that it was an intentional change between Hardy and Intrepid.

However, I am afraid there is still a problem. Having been using the package system for over a year now, I do expect it itself to remain stable and reliable, and I have found out various ways to get out of dependency problems. This one has me stumped, though.

Here's the problem, in a nutshell: evolution can be removed; evolution-dataserver-common cannot, as gnome-panel and gnome-applets depend on it. In between there is evolution-dataserver, and that's where I have problems. I can remove it, and remove spamassassin and spamc, gnome-pilot and gnome-pilot-conduits. Syanptic allows this; nothing else is removed; there are no warnings, nothing breaks. BUT as soon as (any of) those five packages are removed, update-manager flashes on a notification that they have to be re-installed.

I've tried updating, upgrading, removing, in various orders. Nothing leaves me in a stable state without those five packages. Somewhere the update-manager system knows that they HAVE to be installed.

THAT is what I'm concerned about, and what I would like fixed if at all possible. I've tried looking at the dependencies of all five packages, without seeing any logical reason why they all have to be installed. I suspect it's a fairly deep inverse dependency problem, where a system library like libc6 has been marked as depending on them, rather than the other way round.

Hoping this change back to New status will ensure someone reads my last comment.... I'm still not convinced that there is no problem.

I have at last tracked down the glitch. It seems that yet another package designed to work with evolution, nautilus-sendto, has evolution as a recommends, and evolution has spamassassin and gnome-pilot as recommends, so the update-manager sees the 2-step connection and keeps flagging spamassassin as needed, plus the other packages....

I took Sebastian's hint and used one of the more advanced aptitude commands - aptitude why spamassassin.

So now I have removed nautilus-sendto my system no longer demands spamassassin.

seems to be an apt issue

This bug was fixed in the package apt - 0.7.14ubuntu3

---------------
apt (0.7.14ubuntu3) intrepid; urgency=low

  [ Otavio Salvador ]
  * Apply patch to avoid truncating of arbitrary files. Thanks to Bryan
    Donlan <email address hidden> for the patch. Closes: #482476
  * Avoid using dbus if dbus-daemon isn't running. Closes: #438803

  [ Michael Vogt ]
  * apt-pkg/deb/dpkgpm.cc:
    - improve apt progress reporting, display trigger actions
  * apt-pkg/depcache.cc:
    - when checking for new important deps, skip critical ones
      (LP: #236360)

 -- Michael Vogt <email address hidden> Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:27:07 +0200

Thanks Michael - quick work!

BUT - the latest update to apt is not installable. It requires removal of a whole mess of apps, including aptitude and synaptic, plus various other stuff......

I don't know if you can fix this as fast - but it would sure be nice.

don't reopen bugs only because the fixed version is not installable due to transitionnal issues

OK, sorry about that.

What would have been better? to raise a new bug on the un-installable "fixed" package? Or should I have brought it to your/someone's attention in a completely different way?

Please remember that users who report bugs are trying to help the developers.