Colin Watson wrote: > > John McBride <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >As soon as I got a base system working, I updated my sources.list and > >used "apt-get update". It failed after retreiving the pkg files with an > >E: message that some package names were too long. Presumably, my 2.1 > >slink CD has a version of dpkg or something that has some kind of path > >length limitation. > > I don't see anything obvious in the changelog, but I might be missing > something; it's worth asking debian-testing about this (in case it's a > bug in potato too). >
I think it's fixed cuz it goes away after updating the various package utilities. At any rate, I am so impressed by the various responses I've received on the group I decided to reinstall again and document everything that happens--here goes: 1) CD labeled "Linux Central Debian GNU/Linux Release 2.1" 2) Boot/Rescue disk comes up and says "Debian Rescue Floppy 2.1.8 1999-02-03" 3) All goes well; reboot, bail out after creating a root and new account (don't install a profile) 3) edit sources.list, untar my own packages archive (saved from the previous install). 4) apt-get-update to get the package lists. Here's the output for the problems I mentioned: ... Updating package file cache... E: Line 72651 in package file /var/state/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_woody_main_binary-i386_Packages is too long.(2) E: Line 72651 in package file /var/state/apt/lists/ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_woody_main_binary-i386_Packages is too long.(2) ...at this point I upgrade apt... dpkg -i ldso... dpkg -i libc6... dpkg -i libstdc++... dpkg -i apt... ...now apt-get is working again, so I do a "apt-get dist-upgrade" and all is well. Now I try to install helix-gnome with: lynx -source http://spidermonkey.helixcode.com/go-gnome | sh ...but lynx is not installed. "apt-get install lynx" yields: E: This installation run will require temporarily removing the essential package perl-base due to a Conflicts/Pre-Depends loop. This is often bad, but if you really want to do it, activate the APT::Force-LoopBreak option. E: Internal Error, Could not early remove perl-base ...so, I add the following to /etc/apt/apt.conf: APT { Force-LoopBreak "true"; } ...then lynx installs ok. Attempting to install helix-gnome now fails with : Sorry, but the following packages have unmet dependencies: task-helix-gnome: Depends: task-helix-core but it is not going to be installed E: Sorry, broken packages Install finished! ...okay, try to install task-helix-core alone, which works and installs masses of packages. Now try the lynx command again. This time it bails out with the following: Errors were encountered while processing: xserver-svga task-x-window-system-core task-helix-core task-helix-gnome E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) Install finished! ...okay, install gpm, xserver-vga16 and xf86setup. ...edit the /etc/gpm.conf by hand, because the configurator doesn't write the append line properly. ...Don't run gpmtest cuz it will lock the machine, requiring remote access or reset! ...Set up X with XF86Setup. Traverse with the keyboard only until the mouse tab is applied, cuz it assumes Microsoft, which in combination with my MouseSystems mouse causes a tcl/tk stack trace, which in turn requires a ctrl-alt-backspace to start over from the command prompt. ...Reboot. gdm comes up, and both accounts (root and personal) have everything working! actually, everything went much smoother this time around. ...tomorrow, I will try some of the ideas I saw regarding the disabling of gdm, so I can start everything with the "startx" command. I really prefer starting off with a standard tty login. Thanks again, John "A GNU Debian User"
