Dependency problem in Qubes packages when updating to current Debian testing (bullseye)

[Phil Knüfer]

Hi @all,

I just followed the guide on converting a Debian template to Kali Linux.
Apart from a new naming convention in Debian 11 repositories
(bullseye/updates has been renamed to bullseye-security) everything
worked fine.

When executing the ''apt dist-upgrade'' I realized that the packages
"qubes-core-agent-dom0-updates" and "qubes-vm-recommended" were to be
removed. This seems to be due to the fact that
"qubes-core-agent-dom0-updates" requires yum and yum-utiles, which both
seem to be missing in Debian Testing.

The former package is described as "Scripts required to handle dom0
updates." I don't think that I will ever use a Debian Testing/Kali-based
VM for updating dom0 so this should not be a problem. However,
"qubes-vm-recommended" depends on this package and therefore is removed
during the upgrade.

Is this a known issue? Maybe a bug that needs to be addressed in the
packages?

According to my tests/research "qubes-vm-recommended" is only a
metapackage that specifies some dependencies which are recommended for
best performance. All these dependencies should already be installed
anyway and can still be installed manually if there are any problems.

If you are a regular Qubes user and experience the same problem that I
described above, there is likely nothing you need to do.

I would have created a bug report but I don't really know where it
should go. Would https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-meta-packages be the
right place?

Regards,
Phil

[unman]

Hi Phil

Yes this is a known issue, and the workaround you have found is good.
There is no problem in removing the "qubes-vm-recommended"
package, and putting a hold on packages that you want to keep.

I'm reluctant to take any bugs against debian-testing , ( and teherfor
Kali or any distro based on testing), because it is *testing* and you
expect breakage.
It wouldnt be worth Qubes making mitigations against issues that will
probably be fixed as testing moves to stable, imo.

unman