Re: Just one package from woody with apt-get?
Guys_n_Gals,
Perhaps I should clarify why I go to such extents as described _way_
below.
Ross's original question to us was [emphasis added], "What's the _usual_
way of doing this?", i.e., apt-getting just one package from woody.
To my knowledge there isn't a '_usual_ way'. But I think there should
be.
Long before I mixed releases, snagging one or two woody packages to
tighten up my potato firewall, I noticed that apt-get had a habit of
getting 'out of sync' with dpkg.
For instance, I'd do a pure potato 'apt-get dist-upgrade' and apt-get
would bail for a conflict which I knew was not there.
I say 'I knew' because dpkg told me it wasn't there, dselect told me it
wasn't there, and slocate, after an updatedb, told me it wasn't there.
But! I far prefer using apt-get over dselect.
I think apt-get is the biggest 'cat's pajamas' Debian has to offer to
the general computer user. Over Red Hat, over Windows, over Slack, SuSE
and, yes, even over Open and FreeBSD's.
Luckily, a while back, I saw a suggestion posted here that said, more or
less, that if
1.) you went into dselect's GUI and set the access to apt.
2.) Quit dselect, then
3.) ran 'dselect update' from the command line, not from the dselect
GUI,
dpkg would merge its knowledge of the current dist with apt-get's.
Eureka!
Heck, I looked it up. It was a response from Colin Watson in a thread
started by Brian Greenfield on April 30, 2000. The thread's subject,
aptly enough, was "Keeping apt-get, dpkg & dselect in sync".
And, yes, Colin's suggestion has worked for me ever since.
Colin's final take on the issue was:
>
> I'm not entirely convinced this isn't a bug ... it should at least be
> documented that you have to do this.
>
with which I whole heartedly concur.
IMHO, apt-get is too integral to the viability of Debian among general
computer users to remain 'the left hand that does not know what all the
right hands are doing'.
montefin
Olaf Meeuwissen wrote:
>
> Matthew Dalton <matthewd@research.canon.com.au> writes:
>
> > montefin wrote:
> > >
> > > Ross,
> > >
> > > 1.) Actually, I do an 'apt-get update' _and_ a 'dselect update'
> > > beforehand.
> >
> > There is no need to do both. If you are using the apt-get method in
> > dselect, they both do the same thing.
> >
> > > 2.) After apt-get has installed the woody package, I recomment the woody
> > > lines in sources.list.
> > >
> > > 3.) Then, I do another 'apt-get update' _and_ another 'dselect update'.
> >
> > There is probably no need to do either of these. You already have the
> > package lists from your usual archive.
>
> I think step 3.) is necessary. It'll rebuild the caches that apt-get
> and dselect use to contain the potato info. If you don't the caches,
> the caches will still have the woody info. Your next apt-get upgrade
> or dist-upgrade will then put you on woody.
>
> Of course, if you use the apt-get method in dselect, you only have to
> run `dselect update`.
>
> --
> Olaf Meeuwissen Epson Kowa Corporation, Research and Development
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