Re: Dselect

[Britton <fsblk@aurora.alaska.edu>]

On Fri, 6 Mar 1998, Will wrote:

> Ok. I'm new w/ linux (had it for 3 days) and have a little problem.
> Whenever I try to use DSELECT to install programs i've downloaded, it
> asks for the "package" file in addition to the *.deb files.  What's
> wrong??

The 'package' file is a master file used by dselect which lists all the
files present in a given place in the distribution.  If you want to
upgrade your system by downloading stuff, you should probably select the
ftp acces mode.  It will then prompt you for some information, including
the name of the ftp server to connect to, etc.  Here are some answers for
the least obvious part, taken from the libc6 HOWTO
(http://www.gate.net/~storm/FAQ/libc5-libc6-Mini-HOWTO-4.html):



The directory structure of the ftp site has been slightly modified,
placing the contrib and non-free sections of the archive alongside the
main section, to avoid contrib and non-free getting out of sync with
earlier portions of the archives. You must have dpkg-ftp_1.4.9 or greater
to update your machine using dpkg-ftp. If you are updating your machine
via ftp, the proper information to give dpkg-ftp is:

       Enter debian directory: /debian 
       Enter space seperated list of distributions to get:
dists/unstable/main dists/unstable/non-free dists/unstable/contrib 

When you have ftp set up as your access mode, you can procede down the
list and take care of selecting packages, configuring them, etc.  Good
luck, hope you like this the greatest operating system on the face of the
planet :)

> 
> Thanx a lot
> 
> Will
> 
> 
> 
> 
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