Strange apt-get behaviour

[Mark Phillips <mark@ist.flinders.edu.au>]

I was recently trying to download the latest "Evolution" from helix
gnome using apt-get, and had some problems.

I have the sources.list line:

deb http://spidermonkey.helixcode.com/evolution/distributions/Debian ./

When I did "apt-get update" it happily did so, but doing "apt-get
dist-upgrade" would not update evolution_0.5.1 into evolution_0.6.  I
had a look at the Package file (in /var/state/apt/lists) and
discovered that the Package file only mentioned version 0.5.1.  But
when I visited the above directory using Netscape, I found plenty of
0.6 files there, and downloading the Package.gz file manually using
netscape and looking at it, it seems that it was a different Package
file (with version 0.6 of evolution mentioned) to the one obtained by
apt-get.  Very strange.

As far as I am aware, my ISP is not using a http proxy, but it is
possible that it is --- I've heard that it's possible to do
transparent proxying.  Perhaps then apt-get was getting a cached
version of Packages, and hence an old version.  But the funny thing
then is, why did Netscape download the right thing, but not apt-get?
They both used the same http protocol I presume!

I deleted apt-get's versions of the package file (in
/var/state/apt/lists), thus forcing apt-get to redownload it, but it
still got the old one.  So it does sound very much like a proxy thing.
Also, I connected using a different ISP and this time it worked
properly.

So I would go with the transparent proxy and cache as being the cause.
Except for the fact that Netscape downloaded it correctly.

Any thoughts,

Cheers,

Mark.


-- 
_/~~~~~~~~\___/~~~~~~\____________________________________________________
____/~~\_____/~~\__/~~\__________________________Mark_Phillips____________
____/~~\_____/~~\________________________________mark@ist.flinders.edu.au_
____/~~\HE___/~~\__/~~\APTAIN_____________________________________________
____/~~\______/~~~~~~\____________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
        "They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them!"