LP:730557 - apt-get install mariadb-server-5.2 fails on Debian squeeze

Two users reported this problem.

We do not see it in our automatic install/upgrade test, so it may be specific to a particular set of installed packages, or maybe the VMs in the Buildbot need to be upgraded to latest version of squeeze to see it.

I will try to reproduce manually.

The problem is not that package mariadb-common is missing (it is provided by the mysql-common package), but that apt-get does not automatically select the right dependency resolution. Another user reported that a workaround was to use aptitude to install, deny the first solution it proposes, and accept the second solution:

    $ sudo aptitude install mariadb-server-5.2 mysql-common
    ...
    The following actions will resolve these dependencies:
  Keep the following packages at their current version:
    1) libmariadbclient16 [Not Installed]
    2) mariadb-client-5.2 [Not Installed]
    3) mariadb-client-core-5.2 [Not Installed]
    4) mariadb-server-5.2 [Not Installed]
    5) mariadb-server-core-5.2 [Not Installed]
    Accept this solution? [Y/n/q/?] n

    The following actions will resolve these dependencies:
  Install the following packages:
    1) libmysqlclient16 [5.2.5-mariadb99~squeeze (<NULL>)]

  Upgrade the following packages:
    2) mysql-common [5.1.49-3 (now, stable) -> 5.2.5-mariadb99~squeeze (<NULL>)]

    Accept this solution? [Y/n/q/?] y

Here is a description of the problem from Oliver Schneider:

I have tried to install MariaDB (tried both 5.1 and
5.2) on a Debian 6.0 system, following closely the steps described here:

  http://kb.askmonty.org/v/installing-mariadb-deb-files

However, for both cases apt will complain about a missing package
mariadb-common and indeed there is no such package in either one of the
package repositories.

Any ideas as to what I'm doing wrong? There is a package called
mysql-common_5.1.55-mariadb98~squeeze_all.deb for 5.1 and
mysql-common_5.2.5-mariadb99~squeeze_all.deb for 5.2 in the
repositories, but apparently the other .deb references a mariadb-common ...

Thanks in advance,

// Oliver

PS: Exact messages:

----------------------------
$ apt-get install mariadb-server-5.2
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 mariadb-server-5.2 : Depends: mariadb-client-5.2 (>=
5.2.5-mariadb99~squeeze) but it is not going to be installed
                      Depends: libmariadbclient16 (>= 5.1.21-1) but it
is not going to be installed
                      Depends: mariadb-server-core-5.2 (>=
5.2.5-mariadb99~squeeze) but it is not going to be installed
                      PreDepends: mariadb-common
E: Broken packages

----------------------------
$ apt-get install mariadb-server-5.1
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 mariadb-server-5.1 : Depends: mariadb-client-5.1 (>=
5.1.55-mariadb98~squeeze) but it is not going to be installed
                      Depends: libmariadbclient16 (>= 5.1.21-1) but it
is not going to be installed
                      Depends: mariadb-server-core-5.1 (>=
5.1.55-mariadb98~squeeze) but it is not going to be installed
                      PreDepends: mariadb-common
E: Broken packages