David Wright composed on 2018-08-21 11:06 (UTC-0500): Thank you for replying!
> On Mon 20 Aug 2018 at 23:50:59 (-0400), Felix Miata wrote: >> Stretch comes with 4.8.18, which for me is unusable due to an upstream bug >> fixed >> in 4.8.19[1], but 4.8.19 is unusable due to another upstream bug, not fixed >> until 4.8.20[2]. I configured stretch-backports in sources.list, but >> apparently >> it has no newer mc version available. 4.8.21 is on the mirrors, so I >> downloaded >> it from a mirror and installed it with dpkg. It works fine, but now apt is >> broken because it thinks mc is broken and needs to be removed by "apt >> --fix-broken install". Apparently apt thinks mc depends on different packages >> than dpkg does: >> # apt install inxi >> ... >> The following packages have unmet dependencies: >> inxi : Depends: gawk but it is not going to be installed >> mc : Depends: libext2fs2 (>= 1.37) >> Depends: libgpm2 (>= 1.20.7) but 1.20.4-6.2+b1 is to be installed >> E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install' >> # dpkg-reconfigure mc >> /usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure: mc is broken or not fully installed >> Am I the only one who needs mc to work in Stretch? What do others do? >> [1] fubar right pane at startup with saved long file listing >> http://midnight-commander.org/ticket/3758 > I've not used this facility so I didn't know mc was "broken". > I would be tempted to try a workaround. Can you define a hot > key which obeys the keystrokes necessary to reselect Long View, > but which finishes by redefining itself to its original use. > Just a untested suggestion. Of course this might not work for > you even if it's possible: I have all my mc configuration in > readonly files (owned by root where readonly isn't enough) so > it starts up consistently. I have too many users spread across too many installations to consider such an approach viable when an unbroken package already exists. I would have been happen to stick with 4.8.17 if I could have found one anywhere. http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/m/mc/ skips from 4.8.13 to 4.8.18, then to 4.8.21. >> [2] VFS: timestamps not being preserved due to uninitialized struct stat >> st_[acm]tim.tv_nsec (#3821) >> http://midnight-commander.org/ticket/3821 > I couldn't understand this one as it only seemed to describe the code > necessary to fix a bug whose symptoms weren't fully described. That URL originally came from the mc mailing list thread where I inquired of the problem and was told the fix was already in git. https://mail.gnome.org/archives/mc/2017-August/msg00003.html I couldn't make sense of it either, but the link in the 4.8.20 release notes seemed an adequate connection to the problem for programmer minds to figure out: VFS: timestamps not being preserved due to uninitialized struct stat st_[acm]tim.tv_nsec (#3821) http://midnight-commander.org/wiki/NEWS-4.8.20 Eventually I added buster to sources.list, installed 4.8.21, then removed the buster source. This was on my 2GB USB "rescue" stick with Stretch-based Slax 9.5: https://wiki.trinitydesktop.org/Slax_with_Trinity https://www.slax.org/gl/ Freespace on the 2GB Slax USB stick complete with KDE3-based TDE GUI desktop (and systemd) plus my additions is 72%. -- "Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Whatever else you get, get wisdom." Proverbs 4:7 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
