[Pkg-octave-devel] Bug#618139: marked as done (octave3.2: FTBFS: Nonexistent build-dependency: 'libcurl4-dev')

[Thomas Weber]

On Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 08:45:07PM +0000, Adam D. Barratt wrote:
> reopen 618139
> thanks
> 
> On Sat, 2011-03-19 at 20:39 +0000, Debian Bug Tracking System wrote:
> [...]
> > > > Checking for source dependency conflicts...
> > > > E: Package 'libcurl4-dev' has no installation candidate
> [...]
> > > I've built the package in a clean pbuilder chroot with no problems.
> 
> It won't work on the buildds, however, whether pbuilder handles it or
> not.

So, just to make sure I get this correctly, the following is my
understanding of the situation:
1) If I build the package in a clean chroot, it will work because apt
will install one of the providers. 
2) If I build it using pbuilder, it will work because pbuilder knows how
to handle the situation.
3) The buildd software (sbuild?) doesn't cope with the situation anymore
(obviously, at one point in the past this issue wasn't triggered -
libcurl4-dev was added in 2007).

Now, is there a simple way for me to prevent such problems in the
future? I find setting up pbuilder both simple and well-documented
neither of which can be said for sbuild.

> libcurl4-dev is a virtual package with multiple providers, and the
> buildd software won't automatically pick between them, so the same
> situation will recur.  

Given that both apt and pbuilder easily cope with the situation, this
sounds like a missing feature in the buildd software.

> You need to prefer one of the alternatives to provide a concrete
> package to install (e.g. "libcurl4-gnutls-dev | libcurl4-dev").

It worked for ~4 years. Did something change in curl packaging? I don't
see anything obvious in its changelog.

	Thomas