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Re: lie to apt



On Wed, Feb 21, 2001 at 06:16:22PM -0500, xsdg wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 21, 2001 at 10:13:23AM +0000, Jacob Meuser wrote:
> > Is there a way to manually edit the database that says which packages
> > are installed?  I set up a small system, using potato, and am adding
> > several packages from source.  I added stuff like glib-1.2.8, tcl-8.32,
> > tk8.3.2, etc.  How can I tell apt that these packages are installed?
> > Or at least make it think the potato version is installed.
> You may want to take a close(r) look at apt-cache.  I have no idea if I'm correct, or if so, how to use it in this method, but it seems like the right tool for the job...
> 
Well, that lead me to the files I was looking for: /var/lib/dpkg/*
I guess this would be better asked on the devel list *1, but does anyone have
experience hacking /var/lib/dpkg/status ?  I was wondering about the
differences in "Replaces:", "Provides:", and "Conflicts:".  For example, 
I installed glib-1.2.8 from source. I added an entry to the status file:

Package: libglig1.2-all
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: libs
Installed-Size: 99
Maintainer: <jakemsr@localhost>
Version: 1.2.8-99
Replaces: libglib1.2 (<= 1.2.8-99), libglib1.2-dev (<= 1.2.8-99), libglib1.2-dbg (<= 1.2.8-99)
Conflicts: libglib1.2 (<= 1.2.8-99), libglib1.2-dev (<= 1.2.8-99), libglib1.2-dbg (<= 1.2.8-99)

Do I need to add a "Provides:" line also?  Or is the "Replaces:" line enough by itself?

I used stow to organize /usr/local, which made the file list easy to get:
# find /usr/local/stow/glib -name \* -print > /var/lib/dpkg/info/libglib1.2-all.list

<jakemsr@clipper.net>


*1 I looked on the mailing list page and found debian-dpkg.  For
those reading this from debian-dpkg, please email me direct, or
to debian-laptop.  I would also like to know if there is a more 
elegant way of doing this.  I saw a few packages for making .debs, 
are there any that work well for converting a stow heierarchy into
packages?




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