Hi,

# aptitude build-dep git-core
Reading package lists... Done
[...]
Reading extended state information... Done
Initializing package states... Done
Unable to satisfy the build-depends: Build-Depends: libz-dev.
Unable to satisfy the build-depends: Build-Depends: libz-dev.
No packages will be installed, upgraded, or removed.
[...]
# echo $?
0

aptitude seems to dislike build-dependencies on virtual packages
without alternatives (libz-dev here).  Is this a git-core bug or
an aptitude bug?

apt, on the other hand, deals fine with this dependency, whether
zlib1g-dev is already installed or not.

Jonathan

P.S. Any ideas for dealing with the long list of bugs?  I tried
to look for duplicate reports of this and found none, but it
would be nice if the existing reports were categorized as
'command-line utility', 'Gtk frontend' 'curses frontend',
'conflict resolution', 'installing binary packages',
'installing source packages' or something like that.  If this
sounds like a good idea, let me know, and I’ll (slowly) work on
it.

forcemerge 509100 555043
thanks

This is definitely an aptitude bug.
that I can imagine many people wont even bother looking at it, and even
if you do you need some luck to find a duplicate.

Note: I'm not the maintainer, just a user who lurks at the BTS.

Sven

I found a workaround. If you need to install build dependencies for
package X, just create a fake package, which has "Depends", which are
equal to X's "Build-Depends". Then install this fake package via
aptitude.

Possibility of such workaround means that aptitude already has all
needed machinery. We just need to make aptitude to treat
"Build-Depends" in similar way to "Depends"