Re: problems in a net upgrade to Debian 8.1On
On Fri, 19 Jun 2015 11:26:49 Craig Sanders said, On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 04:39:26AM +1000, zlinw@mcmedia.com.au wrote:
and _____BEFORE______ doing any dist-upgrade I ALWAYS check what will happen using dselect as unlike aptitude it will display every change that will be done.
that's what 'apt-get -d -u dist-upgrade' is for. it not only limits
Thanks for the tip, I will give it a go, for various reasons though I prefer dselect.
IMPORTANT point here apt and dselect use different package lists both these need to be updated separately to keep the system in sync.
please stop saying this because it's not true.
apt-get, aptitude, dselect, dpkg and even the GUI versions of same *ALL* >use /var/lib/dpkg/status and /var/lib/dpkg/available.
I beg to differ here, on my systems apt-get update does ___not___ touch /var/lib/dpkg/status and /var/lib/dpkg/available. Also after such an update dselect does ___not___ show any change, but after doing "dselect update", the /var/lib/dpkg/available but status remains as it was.
Russell Coker said,
I've had ongoing problems with aptitude insisting on removing things I want.
I have checked this out and apt appears not te be aware of some packages. as previously stated in one of my cases "blender", apt wanted to remove it due to two missing dependencies, both packages were installed and dselect was aware of them apt was not.
if this actually happened as you remember it,then it was most likely due to versioned dependencies. a dependency can be declared not just on a package
The version numbers ___were___ correct, I checked this explicitly, for some reason apt simply ignored this while dselect and dpkg did not. From all of the above I have assumed apt and dselect ___do___ use different package and status lists. One thing I will restate is because of ___VERY___ poor and expensive internet up around this neck of the woods, I always do a cd (now dvd) install. Long experience shows that for some reason debians net upgrade does ___________NOT___________ like this and after a handfull of net updates the package system gets itself into a real twist. I have found keeping the apt and dselect package list in sync reduces but does not eliminate this confusion. Note: You can fix this usually with dpkg, it takes days though. After 3 or 4 updates its necesary to reinstall the system, with apt-move this is not as difficult as it may appear. I always keep my own updated repository for all versions of debian I use, these only containing the packages I require. To reinstall one uses the method in the debian docs to copy a system, uisng this it only takes 30 minutes or so to reinstall. Remember I am no newbe, I have been using linux since kernel 0.96d (earlish 1993) and having been using debian (the best linux distro) since debians very begining. Lindsay
On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 08:37:46AM +1000, zlinw@mcmedia.com.au wrote:
IMPORTANT point here apt and dselect use different package lists both these need to be updated separately to keep the system in sync.
please stop saying this because it's not true.
apt-get, aptitude, dselect, dpkg and even the GUI versions of same *ALL* use /var/lib/dpkg/status and /var/lib/dpkg/available.
I beg to differ here, on my systems apt-get update does ___not___ touch /var/lib/dpkg/status and /var/lib/dpkg/available. Also after such an update dselect does ___not___ show any change, but after doing "dselect update", the /var/lib/dpkg/available but status remains as it was.
the only way dselect and apt could use different package lists is if you have dselect configured to use, say, cd-rom or multi-cd or one of the other methods while apt's sources.list files point to different sources. (and even then, they're not really using different package lists - they're constantly replacing the package lists with what their configuration tells them is correct, i.e. they've been configured to conflict with each other) you can make sure this is NOT the case by running dselect, choosing option 0 [A]ccess, and selecting 'apt' as the update method. then, when you need to switch between a CD source and an http source (or whatever), change the /etc/apt/sources.list file. try this and then run: dselect update ; apt-get -V -d -u dist-upgrade and then to actually perform the upgrade, either 'apt-get -u dist-upgrade' or 'apt-get -u upgrade' craig -- craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au>
On 20 Jun 2015 9:24 am, "Craig Sanders" <cas@taz.net.au> wrote:
On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 08:37:46AM +1000, zlinw@mcmedia.com.au wrote:
IMPORTANT point here apt and dselect use different package lists both these need to be updated separately to keep the system in sync.
please stop saying this because it's not true.
apt-get, aptitude, dselect, dpkg and even the GUI versions of same
*ALL* use
/var/lib/dpkg/status and /var/lib/dpkg/available.
I beg to differ here, on my systems apt-get update does ___not___ touch /var/lib/dpkg/status and /var/lib/dpkg/available. Also after such an update dselect does ___not___ show any change, but after doing "dselect update", the /var/lib/dpkg/available but status remains as it was.
the only way dselect and apt could use different package lists is if you have dselect configured to use, say, cd-rom or multi-cd or one of the other methods while apt's sources.list files point to different sources.
(and even then, they're not really using different package lists - they're constantly replacing the package lists with what their configuration tells them is correct, i.e. they've been configured to conflict with each other)
you can make sure this is NOT the case by running dselect, choosing option 0 [A]ccess, and selecting 'apt' as the update method.
then, when you need to switch between a CD source and an http source (or whatever), change the /etc/apt/sources.list file.
try this and then run:
dselect update ; apt-get -V -d -u dist-upgrade
and then to actually perform the upgrade, either 'apt-get -u dist-upgrade' or 'apt-get -u upgrade'
Curious as to what's at play here I did a quick search while killing time on the train. https://wiki.debian.org/DebianPackageManagement has this to say: "Debian package management consists of several layers. The lowest layers, most of which you won't want to touch, are made up of dpkg and associated programs. On top of those layers are the Apt and apt-get tools as well as the newer aptitude tool. The Package Management Tools page has brief descriptions of these and other tools which work with DebianPackage files." And then... "Full-Screen Frontends These are both console (ncurses) and GUI based. There are a number of alternatives, similar in some regards, different in others. For users of RPM-based Linux distros, analogs include RedCarpet and Up2Date. aptitude may be invoked in full screen console mode (ncurses) or CLI mode, and is a friendly frontend to apt. DSelect is an older frontend to apt. It is no longer recommended. Synaptic is another GUI-based frontend. Apper is one more GUI front-end (KDE-based). The front-end is based on packagekit."
Craig Sanders writes:
On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 08:37:46AM +1000, zlinw@mcmedia.com.au wrote:
IMPORTANT point here apt and dselect use different package lists both these need to be updated separately to keep the system in sync.
please stop saying this because it's not true.
apt-get, aptitude, dselect, dpkg and even the GUI versions of same *ALL* use /var/lib/dpkg/status and /var/lib/dpkg/available.
I beg to differ here, on my systems apt-get update does ___not___ touch /var/lib/dpkg/status and /var/lib/dpkg/available. Also after such an update dselect does ___not___ show any change, but after doing "dselect update", the /var/lib/dpkg/available but status remains as it was.
the only way dselect and apt could use different package lists is if you have dselect configured to use, say, cd-rom or multi-cd or one of the other methods while apt's sources.list files point to different sources.
(and even then, they're not really using different package lists - they're constantly replacing the package lists with what their configuration tells them is correct, i.e. they've been configured to conflict with each other)
you can make sure this is NOT the case by running dselect, choosing option 0 [A]ccess, and selecting 'apt' as the update method.
then, when you need to switch between a CD source and an http source (or whatever), change the /etc/apt/sources.list file.
try this and then run:
dselect update ; apt-get -V -d -u dist-upgrade
and then to actually perform the upgrade, either 'apt-get -u dist-upgrade' or 'apt-get -u upgrade'
craig
-- craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au> _______________________________________________ luv-main mailing list luv-main@luv.asn.au http://lists.luv.asn.au/listinfo/luv-main
Many thanks for the reply, you have given a good deal of info in both posts which will take some time to rationalise, but in fact I do use the apt method for dselect, even then it __always__ fetch's its own lists, ie it ___does__not__ use the local apt lists. See my previous post (the email system willing of course). Debian is great, I certainly believe the current package system is way to complex, and debian unfortunately does have something of a blind spot for those of us that have poor intenet access (thats not just my opinion, I have talked this issue over with two debian developers both acknowledged this as a weakness). Lindsay
participants (3)
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Colin Fee -
Craig Sanders -
zlinw＠mcmedia.com.au