Debian – Why is the Provides field in the local Debian package ignored (DepCompareOp)

debianpackaging

I'm running Debian sid and want to use TeX Live from CTAN. So I didn't install the Debian texlive-packages, but created a virtual local package with equivs. You can find the control file below:

Section: misc
Priority: optional
Standards-Version: 3.9.4

Package: texlive-local
Version: 2014-1
Maintainer: Jens Kubieziel <jens@kubieziel.de>
Provides: chktex, biblatex, biblatex-dw, cm-super, cm-super-minimal, context,
 dvidvi, dvipng, feynmf, fragmaster, jadetex, lacheck, latex-beamer,
 latex-cjk-all, latex-cjk-chinese, latex-cjk-chinese-arphic-bkai00mp,
 latex-cjk-chinese-arphic-bsmi00lp, latex-cjk-chinese-arphic-gbsn00lp,
 latex-cjk-chinese-arphic-gkai00mp, latex-cjk-common, latex-cjk-japanese,
 latex-cjk-japanese-wadalab, latex-cjk-korean, latex-cjk-thai, latexdiff,
 latexmk, latex-sanskrit, latex-xcolor, lcdf-typetools, lmodern, luatex,
 musixtex, passivetex, pgf, preview-latex-style, prosper, ps2eps, psutils,
 purifyeps, t1utils, tex4ht, tex4ht-common, tex-gyre, texlive, texlive-base,
 texlive-bibtex-extra, texlive-binaries, texlive-common, texlive-extra-utils,
 texlive-fonts-extra, texlive-fonts-extra-doc, texlive-fonts-recommended,
 texlive-fonts-recommended-doc, texlive-font-utils, texlive-formats-extra,
 texlive-games, texlive-generic-extra, texlive-generic-recommended,
 texlive-humanities, texlive-humanities-doc, texlive-lang-african,
 texlive-lang-all, texlive-lang-arabic, texlive-lang-cjk, texlive-lang-cyrillic,
 texlive-lang-czechslovak, texlive-lang-english, texlive-lang-european,
 texlive-lang-french, texlive-lang-german, texlive-lang-greek,
 texlive-lang-indic, texlive-lang-italian, texlive-lang-other,
 texlive-lang-polish, texlive-lang-portuguese, texlive-lang-spanish,
 texlive-latex-base, texlive-latex-base-doc, texlive-latex-extra,
 texlive-latex-extra-doc, texlive-latex-recommended,
 texlive-latex-recommended-doc, texlive-luatex, texlive-math-extra,
 texlive-metapost, texlive-metapost-doc, texlive-music,
 texlive-omega, texlive-pictures, texlive-pictures-doc, texlive-plain-extra,
 texlive-pstricks, texlive-pstricks-doc, texlive-publishers,
 texlive-publishers-doc, texlive-science, texlive-science-doc, texlive-xetex,
 thailatex, tipa, tipa-doc, xindy, xindy-rules, xmltex
Architecture: all
Description: My local installation of TeX Live 2013.
 A full "vanilla" TeX Live 2013
 http://tug.org/texlive/debian#vanilla

I used equivs-build to create the Debian package and installed it. However when I open apt-get, aptitude or other package managers I get the following message:

W: Ignoring Provides line with DepCompareOp for package texlive-latex-base

It advises to call apt-get update which I did, but the message stays. Why does this message appear and what can I do to correct this warning?

The package texlive-latex-base not installed:

> apt-cache policy texlive-latex-base
texlive-latex-base:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 2013.20140215-1

Best Answer

The reason for the message is that, prior to Debian 8, versioned provides weren’t supported. texlive-latex-base has versioned dependencies on a number of packages provided by your texlive-local package, but because those packages are provided, they can’t (couldn’t) satisfy the versioned dependencies.

Since dpkg 1.17.11, provided packages can specify versions and thus satisfy versioned dependencies. You do this by declaring Provides: chktex (= 1.6.4-4) etc. (the version is just an example, matching Wheezy).

Debian control file "Provides" does not satisfy dependency has more details.

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