Hi again, On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 08:47:35PM -0500, Mumia W.. wrote: > On 06/19/2008 02:22 PM, Alan Mackenzie wrote: > >Hi, debian!
> >My system: Debian Sarge, with little alteration other than a kernel > >upgrade (to 2.6.8). > >I currently have aptitude 0.2.15.9 compiled at Apr 7 2005 13:32:48. I > >am having severe problems with it, and have become totally confused. > >I start aptitude. This status message appears at the top right of the > >screen: > > #Broken: 12 Will free 16.7MB of disk space DL Size: 6215kB > >[...] > >Would somebody please explain what's happened to my system, and how to > >fix it. I would like to be able to _just_ install software, in > >particular a >= 2.4 version of python. > >Is there perhaps some command (apt-foo, perhaps??) which could rebuild > >the package database on my system? > >Is there perhaps a less flexible, easier to use package manager? > >aptitude is about as complicated as mutt, but because I only use > >aptitude at most a few times a year, I'm never going to get to grips > >properly with it. > >Thanks in advance for the help! > To know what is going on with your system, we would need to see your > /etc/apt/sources.list and /etc/apt/preferences files. #/etc/apt/sources.list: ######################################################################### deb ftp://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ stable main contrib deb-src ftp://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ stable main contrib deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main contrib ######################################################################### I haven't got an /etc/apt/preferences. However, I can see one problem. I've got "stable" where I really want to have "sarge". "stable" points at the current Debian release, which changes every now and then. This seems a source of my problems. > The output of this command would also help: > aptitude -sV upgrade ######################################################################### [ a few status messages from reading the archive ] The following packages are unused and will be REMOVED: cjk-latex [4.5.1-4 -> 4.7.0+cvs20061019-2] freetype1-tools [1.4pre.20030402-1.1 -> 1.4pre.20050518-0.4] hlatex [0.991-6 -> 1.0.1-2.1] hlatex-fonts-base [0.991-2.1 -> 1.0-3.1] libttf2 [1.4pre.20030402-1.1 -> 1.4pre.20050518-0.4] The following packages have been kept back: a2ps [1:4.13b-4.3 -> 1:4.13b.dfsg.1-1] .... bsdmainutils [6.0.17 -> 6.1.6] bsdutils [1:2.12p-4 -> 1:2.12r-19etch1] .... [~500 packages "kept back"] zlib1g-dev [1:1.2.2-4 -> 1:1.2.3-13] The following packages will be upgraded: apsfilter [7.2.6-1 -> 7.2.6-1.1] base-files [3.1.2 -> 4] .... [ ~70 packages "will be upgraded] xml-core [0.09 -> 0.09-0.1] The following packages are RECOMMENDED but will NOT be installed: latex-cjk-all [4.7.0+cvs20061019-2] libcompress-zlib-perl [1.42-2] libeel2-2.14 [2.14.3-5] libft-perl [1.2-16] libhtml-format-perl [2.04-1] lsb-base [3.1-23.2etch1] wbritish [6-2] x-ttcidfont-conf [25.1] 99 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 5 to remove and 762 not upgraded. Need to get 152MB of archives. After unpacking 57.5MB will be freed. Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] Would download/install/remove packages. ######################################################################### > I suspect that your attempt to upgrade python broke your system. If you > are not an expert with Debian, it is best to stick with a single > distribution (e.g. "stable") rather than to mix distributions (e.g. > "oldstable"+"stable"). I was expecting that in using a package manager, it would simply do the Right Thing, without me having to worry. Again, I think the problem for me is that the meaning of "stable" has changed from "sarge" to "etch". Presumably this was a deliberate choice of the Debian team, on the assumption that most people would be upgrading as early as possible anyhow. Is there a symbolic link (or something similar) in the Debian archive, something like "sarge" -> "oldstable", that I could use here in place of "stable"? > One way to solve this problem would be to modify your > /etc/apt/sources.list to contain only Sarge ("oldstable") sources and > update aptitude. Then, using aptitude's interactive interface, remove > those "obsolete and locally created packages" that seem to depend upon > non-Sarge resources. Anything from "obsolete and locally created > packages" that seems to be breaking the system should be removed. After > that, confirm that aptitude is happy by doing another "aptitude -sV > upgrade." Aptitude should not want to upgrade anything. I will try this. Thanks! > You need python (>= 2.4), and that version exists in Etch--which is why > you wanted to mix distributions, but mixing distributions is a great way > to break a Debian system, so you need backports. See if backports.org > has a suitable version of python for you. If not, consider upgrading to > Etch. As a Sarge user, you are not getting security updates, so you > should probably want to upgrade soon anyway. Installing Debian is very, very painful, and upgrading it is probably not much better. I downloaded an etch CD image about a year ago, in fact, on 17th May 2007, and started installing it. On 26th May, I got distracted by something else, and never got back to etch. To install sarge and get it working acceptably took me 20 days when I didn't have a day job, and it took me another 7 days of evenings to get my ethernet card working when I (finally!) got a DSL link. I've kept a blow-by-blow log of everything I did, so it won't be as bad next time round. But I'm still not looking forward to it. > BTW, by mixing distributions, you would have problems regardless of > which package manager you used. Hmm. I don't really feel that it was me that did the mixing. :-) However, I take the point. I'll try the suggestion you gave me up above (putting "oldstable" into sources.list), and then report on what happened. -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany). -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
