Re: less than useful dselect/dpkg error msg
Hey Dale:
me:
> > are pretty much useless. This sort of error message reminds
> > me of Red Hat's RPM!
> Ooooh, that was nasty ;-)
Yes, and it is only one that has actually USED RPM that can truely appreciate just HOW nasty that remark was.
That is, one that has used RPM and has since used dselect/ dpkg!
The Debian package management system is amazing to the point of being almost unbelievable. Between a PC and an Amiga
(debian-m68k) I have probably made about every mistake that one can make. I have yet (looking around for some real wood
to knock on) to render a machine unbootable. I did mess up an m68k machine enough that I decided it was not worth
further fooling around and just reinstalled (and yes it was a libc6 upgrade).
As this particular upgrade was from the hamm distribution, I am still not sure if the problem should be considered a bug
or not (assuming of course that it is not some unique problem with my machine) but dselect downgrades some
packages everytime it runs unless those packages are placed on hold status.
In my second installation attempt, I only let dselect install the minimum necessary software and then used dpkg
to upgrade everything that had been installed to the latest versions (again following Scott's mini-HOWTO). Then I set ALL packages to hold using dselect.
Until I figure this out, I will keep all packages set to hold and individually select packages for installation and
upgrade. But even then I probably should watch to be sure that during the upgrade a package is not downgraded.
I doubt that there are any packages left that will break the system if a downgrade does occur however.
The 'less than useful' error message is the strange (IMHO) way that dpkg has for telling me that the package can not
be configured because it is already configured.
I do know that dpkg does not pay any attention to the "hold" status in the admin file when executed directly (which makes
sense to me).
best,
-bill
> >
> > What causes this sort of information free error message?
> > Does dpkg honor the 'hold' status in the status file when it
> > is placed there by dselect (that is when dpkg is run manually from the command line)?
> >
> I'm not conversant with dpkg internals enough to tell you where that "less
> than useful" error message originates. Was the package really on Hold
> status?
> As far as I can tell, dpkg honors the hold in the status file, unless you
> include --force-hold as an option on the command line. (It can't tell
> whether dselect put the Hold there, or some editor, but that is another issue)
>
> Luck,
>
> Dwarf
> --
> _-_-_-_-_-_- _-_-_-_-_-_-_-
>
>aka Dale Scheetz Phone: 1 (904) 656-9769
> Flexible Software 11000 McCrackin Road
> e-mail: dwarf@polaris.net Tallahassee, FL 32308
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