Hi,

On Mon, Aug 29, 2005 at 02:02:47PM +0200, Jaroslaw Polok wrote:
> >It looks a bit like a broken /etc/apt/preferences file. Try
> >removing/renaming this and retry.
> 
> Well .. maybe not 'broken' .. but just 'configured':
> 
> on SL3/4 apt preferences file is setup to prefer SL3/4
> 'base' repository over add-on third-party ones.
> 
> If user wants to change this I would suggest editing this
> file and setting up the desired preference order .. instead
> of removing it all together ..

Well, there have been endless debates whether non-trivial
(e.g. configured) preferences/weights/partially enabled repos should
be axiomatically defined as broken. :)

I tend to support the "weights are broken" fraction, as bug reports
like this one are coming too frequently in the last year, year and a
half. And this was a lucky case, where the packages would refuse to
install.

I believe that the best policy is to either fully enable a repo (have
it at the same priority/weight etc as the rest) or drop it
altogether.

AFAIK no add-on repo is enabled by default in SL, so having a second
hurdle with priorities in apt is not really neccessary and also
conflicts with yum's semantics (if one is interested to make apt and
yum provide the same set of results), since yum only knows about
enabling/disabling.

So perhaps the preferences file should be shipped empty? And instead a
big(ger) warning on enabling non-SL sources should be placed into the
config files?
-- 
Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net