Cannot install git-svn apt-package

Environments Xenial
#1

I was trying to install git svn apt package on xenial, and ran into the following error

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
git-svn : Depends: git (< 1:2.7.4-.)
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

I cannot reproduce the error on a xenial docker container and essentially the same build script worked on xenial 20 days ago.

Not entirely sure how to work around this without requiring sudo access, which I have thus far avoided.

#2

We will be moving to GCP for all Linux builds, so you will be able to assume sudo will be available.

In the mean time, though, if git-svn can’t satisfy the dependency, then there is not much we can do to avoid it. (In other words, the failure will happen outside the context of Travis CI.)

#3

As I mentioned I have thus far been unable to reproduce it outside of travis. I think the dependency issue stems from the installation of a much newer git (2.19.1) then is available by default on xenial.

Could you tell me how you are installing git on the images so I can try to reproduce it locally and figure out a workaround?

#4

We install it from git-core/git PPA.


https://launchpad.net/~git-core/+archive/ubuntu/ppa

#5

I had the same git-svn install problem. After quite some experiments I got it working with the following work-around:

before_install:
  - sudo apt-get remove git git-man
  - sudo add-apt-repository --remove --yes ppa:git-core/ppa
  - sudo apt-get update
  - sudo apt-get install --yes git git-svn
#6

According to https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=git-svn, git-svn is in the universe repository.

So as per software center - How do I enable the “Universe” repository? - Ask Ubuntu, the following should work:

sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo apt update
sudo apt install git-svn
#7

Apparently, the universe repository is already enabled (and always was), as the git-svn package is found just fine :slight_smile: It is found, because it complains about the git version.

The problem is that the xenial-universe version of git-svn requires an older git package than found in the git PPA that travis uses.

#8

Oh, I see, their Git is not from the stock package but from some third-party one.
(For some reason, they also have git-core of an earlier version, with intersecting files)
Fortunately, that 3rd party were nice enough to include a compatible version of git-svn.

So, that’ll be:

- sudo add-apt-repository ppa:git-core/ppa
- sudo apt update
- sudo apt install git-svn

or, with the apt addon (using alias from the safelist):

addons:
  apt:
    sources:
      - git-core
    packages:
      - git-svn
    update: true
#9

Thanks, your solution works like a charm (https://github.com/zestsoftware/zest.releaser/pull/335/files). More elegant than my original solution!

On the git-core PPA page I only noticed the “git” package, but you’re right: they have “git-svn” too.

#10

Yeah, I didn’t find any way in the Launchpad Web UI to vew the contents of a PPA – so had to explore the repo metadata by hand. Given that hosting PPAs is one of the site’s core functions, this is a very strange omission.

#11

I ran into this issue as well, but git-core seems to be not available via addon on Bionic based builds as it fails with Disallowing sources: git-core. So I had to specify the source manually there:

addons:
  apt:
    sources:
    - sourceline: ppa:git-core/ppa
    packages:
    - git-svn

On the other side explicit update is not necessary anymore.

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Bionic doesn't seem to be using a correct safelist
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