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Re: [LUG] Arghgh! Apt-get issues again!

 

On Wednesday 10 August 2005 1:24 pm, Grant Sewell wrote:
> I am happy enough with Sid, I have had few problems with it and it seems
> stable enough for a desktop system - I am running Sarge for my Mail/Web
> servers though.

Sensible. Testing is fine but only necessary for servers if there are packages 
you really MUST have that aren't yet in stable.

After all, the thing about most servers is that you don't have the level of 
access (keyboard, monitor, CD, reset) that you would with a desktop system, 
you rely on software access and that means relying on stable software 
packages.

> I don't run Evolution much (only really installed it to 
> play around and try the Exchange connector thingy); X is running smoothly,
> so I'm guessing they're not a problems that'll affect my system greatly. 

You are currently stuck on old packages for the two that won't yet install. 
That's no odds - after all, they work fine.

I've currently got a problem with my favourite IDE which has exposed a bug in 
the v.latest version of libpango - the internationalised text library - to 
such an extent that I cannot use the program to edit any files - rather a 
problem for an IDE! I've checked the bugs, added some content to the bug that 
already existed and I'm waiting for the updated libpango to make it's way out 
of experimental and into unstable.

There's also a bug in KMail which is giving me a seg. fault unless it is run 
inside Kontact.

This is the most frustrating manifestation of unstable problems - when a 
problem with a new package causes your main applications to become unusable. 
However, it is also the most important part of the Debian system - always 
always always report these problems. If you don't speak up, the problem might 
not be caught before it goes into testing.

At the very least, you must check that someone else has not reported it yet - 
don't assume. reportbug <package> does that for you anyway.

> But, I have to ask... with issues like this, will apt sort itself out later
> on?

Yes. When an updated package reaches the Debian archive mirrors, your next 
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade cycle will catch up.

The only proviso to that is if the new packages require extra packages or 
conflict with the problem package as a dependency.

It's always worth checking on your unstable system by running apt-get update 
&& apt-get upgrade from a terminal window - this will show you how many 
packages are "held back". These will involve installing new packages, maybe 
removing old ones etc. - things that apt won't do unsupervised.

The other thing to check is to see if you can "roll back" to the previous 
version. Check out how to use apt-get install package=0.11.8 where you 
specify the PREVIOUS version of a package to be installed.

It depends on the application and if it's a core library like x11 or pango, 
you can easily find that apt suddenly wants to uninstall hundreds of packages 
because of the change in the core library. In that situation, you are - like 
me - stuck with what you have.

The bug reports also have workarounds usually too.

> For example, once the X issues have been resolved by the Debian X SF 
> team, and appropriate changes to Sid's packages have been made, would a
> simple "apt-get update & apt-get upgrade" then work again?

Usually, yes. The new package simply replaces the old and it's as if you 
simply hadn't run apt-get upgrade for a while - apt skips the version in 
between and jumps you forward to the very latest version. So if you have 
0.4.5 now and 0.4.6 won't install, when 0.4.6-2 comes along, apt won't bother 
trying to install 0.4.6, it'll go straight for 0.4.6-2. Exactly as if you 
simply didn't run update for a few days.

-- 

Neil Williams
=============
http://www.data-freedom.org/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

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