I recognized unmet dependencies when doing a dist-upgrade after update+upgrade...:

The following packages have unmet d.:
upstart: PreDepends: sysvinit-utils (>= 2.86.ds1-23) or busybox (>= 3:1.6.1.legal-losso8) but it is not going to be installed
E:Error, pkgProbresolver :Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.


install -f or --fix-missing does not change anything. Any ideas how to fix?

Thou shalt not use dist-upgrade in Fremantle! Do a forum search, you will find a gazillion similar experiences.

Yikes. At least your phone didn't get bricked. I don't think dist-upgrade is safe to do on Maemo (or Maemo Harmattan). It's unfortunate that this route is so tempting for users of Debian-based desktop distros but can kill a Maemo device . . .

Try reading through some of the results if you power search for "dist-upgrade" and you might find a solution short of a reflash . . .

Yep, the best thing to do is reflash and start again, or suffer dependency chaos til the end of time.

Would it be easy to block apt-get dist-upgrade in CSSU? Or at least give a warning?

That might be a good idea instead of having what amounts to a "don't press this button" button. Because every so often, even one of us smart guys -- after a long day upgrading Debian or Ubuntu or whatever boxes in the office, home or home office -- sits down to dinner and a nice glass of wine and afterwards goes to relax and update his phone and just cruises through as if on autopilot to do a dist-upgrade only to realize an ohnosecond too late just what he did. At least I've heard that can happen.



Don't know if it's possible or easy, but I certainly like t-b's suggestion for both reducing embarrassment and avoiding posts for help that might never have been needed.

Maemo was never "designed" to install packages from a terminal.
As always Hildon Application Manager is the official method of installing all updates.
It's not apt's fault and blocking it isn't really the way to go about fixing the issue.

Also the warning that it is about to uninstall a load of important packages gives you a hint

I completely agree.

The correct way to fix the issue should be to identify the culpable packages which are forcing the uninstallation of other packages, find out why they are behaving this way and then take appropriate action, which may well turn out to be that they just need to be repackaged with fixed dependency information.

Whilst it's true that HAM is the official method, apt has always been available and is preinstalled, therefore in my opinion, it is a legitimate bug and ought to be fixed.

I think maybe CSSU should modify apt (which it is already shipping) that disables dist-upgrade and replaces it with a "dist-upgrade doesn't work on Maemo" type warning.