dselect and unstable packages

[Glen Carreras <carrerag@worldnet.att.net>]

First let me apologize if this has been answered previously, however I
scan the list daily and have found no reference to this yet.

It seems that I cannot get dselect to successfully complete operation when
I try to work with the unstable ditributions. (i.e unstable/main
unstable/contrib unstable/non-free)

Utilizing ftp.debian.org I enter /debian as my top level directory and
enter unstable, hamm/non-free, and hamm/contrib for the list of
distributions to get.  The update phase seems to go smoothly and I can
select packages, but when I go to the install phase I get the error
"Couldn't find packages file for hamm/contrib distribution (re-run
update)" I get the same error for non-free.

I have tried various combinations of top level directory and distribution
directory combinations all of which seem to work one way or another, but
not all at once. (I can get contrib and non-free to work properly, but not
unstable or vice-versa)

I have found that /var/lib/dpkg/methods/ftp/vars writes the distributions
like so:

$distribs='unstable hamm/contrib hamm/non-free'

yet the package files are named Packages.hamm_contrib etc.

If I edit the vars file to read:

$distribs='unstable hamm_contrib hamm_non-free'

then everything goes without a hitch, however, then I have a problem the
next time I run the update phase because it can't find the distributions.

I'm sorry this is getting so long.  I have been dealing with this since
the hamm distribution started, thinking that this would soon be a
corrected bug, but I'm starting to think maybe it's something wrong with
my installation since there is no discussion on the list about it.  Any
help would be much appreciated.

Glen


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