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Re: Getting dselect and apt-* to work from a local file system



On Sat, Jul 14, 2001 at 02:54:43PM -0700, der.hans wrote:
> Am 14. Jul, 2001 schw?zte Joost Kooij so:
> 
> > Try to run update again from the dselect menu.  If you keep having
> > problems with the integrity of the /var/lib/dpkg/available file, please
> > post again.
> 
> I don't think he can. I think this is the case where debian has no net
> access, but can get stuff off another filesystem via duel-boot with an OS
> that does have net access.
> 
> While it would seem good to give debian net access :), he apparently can't
> for some reason.

Before ubiquitous net access became a commodity, debian worked just fine.
Why else do you think that there still is a dpkg-split utility in the 
dpkg package?

Admittedly, I wouldn't want to go back and dselect and apt are great 
improvements, but you can still manage a debian system without them.
It's just a bit more harsh.  Without dselect and/or apt, you'll quickly 
be experienced in sed and awk.  Maybe that is in fact the only way to 
really appreciate what the high level tools can do.

> So, now we know dselect needs /var/lib/dpkg/available. Is that simply a file
> that's downloaded? Is it something that's built from other files?

No, it's part of the dpkg database.  You should not be modifying that by
hand, unless dpkg itself has broken down.  

> I think he needs to know how to get the content via ftp or http and then how
> to build /var/lib/dpkg/available by hand.

Download the Packages file, ungzip it, and use the correct interface:

  dpkg --update-avail Packages

I thought earlier that it could be piped to stdin as well, but it doesn't.

> Also, could he just edit the one he has and take out one or both of the
> offending entries?

Sure, as I said, when dpkg is severely broken, you'll have to.  But this is
not the case right now, if he can still use "dpkg --update-avail" 

There is also --merge-avail, which works out slightly differently, but in
the case of a database corruption, --update-avail is better, I think.

Cheers,


Joost



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