Bug#940965: apt: Fails to find a solution for libgtk-3-0 and sysvinit-core

[Mark Hindley]

Julian,

Many thanks for this.

On Sun, Feb 16, 2025 at 12:23:01PM +0100, Julian Andres Klode wrote:
> That being said, being able to switch init systems without a pin is
> a bug in the init system; init systems should set the Protected: yes
> field so that they cannot be removed without explicitly running
> 
>     apt remove --allow-remove-essential sysvinit-core
>     apt install/upgrade/... --allow-remove-essential sysvinit-core-
> 
>     (note that starting with 2.3.12/stable; --allow-remove-essential
>      only applies to arguments; the solver itself cannot decide to
>      remove essential packages anymore)
> 
> As such I am reassigning this bug to sysvinit-core so it can gain
> the appropriate flag.

I don't see a problem with adding this. However, I have read deb-control(5) and
the documentation relating to it and when it is required is quite sparse. I
think this ought to be documented more clearly, perhaps in Policy?

A quick search indicates that the packages currently utilising this flag is a
somewhat disparate list[1]: login, reform-tools, various flavours of gcc,
init-system-helpers, grub-*-signed...

Mark

[1]  https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=Protected%3A+yes+path%3Adebian%2Fcontrol&literal=0