[ale] Evolution strangeness

[Phil Turmel]

I mistakenly thought apt-get only worked through dpkg for package
states.  Then I discovered apt-mark -- dependency hell has been less
hellish since then.

On 02/08/2016 11:37 AM, DJ-Pfulio wrote:
> APT is just a library that manages the APT DB. apt-get, synaptic, aptitude are
> the front-ends normally used. I don't understand what "force install/update
> order" means. The APT dependencies are automatically resolved and all
> dependencies are handled for each package in the necessary order.  Only time
> this breaks is when someone installs a .deb file manually using dpkg directly.
> Don't do that. It will lock the dependencies and within a few months your
> apt-get update will start having issues and get screwed.  Using trusted,
> maintained, PPAs is a viable solution, but when/if a PPA isn't maintained,
> similar dependency issues can arise.  Sadly, the damage is usually months old
> before anyone sees these problems. Resolving apt-hell (or RPM-hell) issues has
> always been a little guesswork and luck.  Sometimes there doesn't appear to be
> any solution short of dumping the list of installed packages and reinstalling
> the OS, then importing the desired packages from that list dumped on the prior
> install.  If you are careful, this is never necessary. If you install .deb files
> directly, it is a 50/50 chance of bad things happening in the future on a
> desktop. For servers that don't get modified much, those risks drop greatly, IME.