4

I'm (still) on Debian Squeeze. When I try to upgrade the system, here's what I get:

[09:20]/root# aptitude upgrade
No packages will be installed, upgraded, or removed.
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B of archives. After unpacking 0 B will be used.

Looking at the log, I get a hint at the name of the culprit package:

Aptitude 0.6.3: log report
Sat, Jun 22 2013 09:20:13 +0200

IMPORTANT: this log only lists intended actions; actions which fail due to
dpkg problems may not be completed.

Will install 0 packages, and remove 0 packages.
===============================================================================
[HOLD] libxcb1
===============================================================================

Log complete.

However, if I look at the package, I don't get any more details:

[09:21]/root# aptitude show libxcb1
Package: libxcb1
State: installed
Automatically installed: no
Version: 1.6-1
Priority: optional
Section: libs
Maintainer: XCB Developers <[email protected]>
Uncompressed Size: 188 k
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.3.2), libxau6, libxdmcp6
Breaks: libxcb-xlib0
...

I'm surprised by how little info aptitude is giving me about its refusal to upgrade the package.

My question is: What are the steps I should follow in this situation to find out why this package is not upgraded?

Update: Here's the desired command:

$ apt-cache policy libxcb1
libxcb1:
  Installed: 1.6-1
  Candidate: 1.6-1+squeeze1
  Version table:
     1.6-1+squeeze1 0
        500 http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates/main amd64 Packages
 *** 1.6-1 0
        500 http://debian.mirrors.ovh.net/debian/ squeeze/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
Improve this question
7
  • Can it be that your sources.list still points to the squeeze repos? Commented Jun 22, 2013 at 8:32
  • Yes it does. I haven't moved to Wheezy yet. Is it relevant? Commented Jun 22, 2013 at 8:58
  • 2
    Run apt-cache policy libxcb1 and paste the output. I think aptitude respects apt pinning. You could also try running apt-get install libxcbi and see what happens. Commented Jun 22, 2013 at 10:55
  • @rahmu of course it is! When you run apt-get upgrade, apt-get compares the state of the packages on your system against the state of the packages in your chosen repo. See my answer below. Commented Jun 22, 2013 at 15:04
  • Use apt-get dist-upgrade is an immediate, yet radical solution to your problem. I actually post to quote: "In case of doubt, please use the apt-get and apt-cache commands over the aptitude command." [debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/… Commented Jun 22, 2013 at 17:59

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4

You need to know why aptitude doesn't want to install that version of the package, with a quick why-not you can figure this out:

aptitude why-not libxcb1=1.6-1+squeeze1

But my guess is that one of the 79 reverse dependencies depended of the 1.6-1 version of the package, since there isn't any packages that breaks/conflicts with this library.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.