Re: What's the right way to get an unbroken mc package installed in Stretch
David Wright composed on 2018-08-21 11:06 (UTC-0500):
Thank you for replying!
> On Mon 20 Aug 2018 at 23:50:59 (-0400), Felix Miata wrote:
>> Stretch comes with 4.8.18, which for me is unusable due to an upstream bug fixed
>> in 4.8.19[1], but 4.8.19 is unusable due to another upstream bug, not fixed
>> until 4.8.20[2]. I configured stretch-backports in sources.list, but apparently
>> it has no newer mc version available. 4.8.21 is on the mirrors, so I downloaded
>> it from a mirror and installed it with dpkg. It works fine, but now apt is
>> broken because it thinks mc is broken and needs to be removed by "apt
>> --fix-broken install". Apparently apt thinks mc depends on different packages
>> than dpkg does:
>> # apt install inxi
>> ...
>> The following packages have unmet dependencies:
>> inxi : Depends: gawk but it is not going to be installed
>> mc : Depends: libext2fs2 (>= 1.37)
>> Depends: libgpm2 (>= 1.20.7) but 1.20.4-6.2+b1 is to be installed
>> E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install'
>> # dpkg-reconfigure mc
>> /usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure: mc is broken or not fully installed
>> Am I the only one who needs mc to work in Stretch? What do others do?
>> [1] fubar right pane at startup with saved long file listing
>> http://midnight-commander.org/ticket/3758
> I've not used this facility so I didn't know mc was "broken".
> I would be tempted to try a workaround. Can you define a hot
> key which obeys the keystrokes necessary to reselect Long View,
> but which finishes by redefining itself to its original use.
> Just a untested suggestion. Of course this might not work for
> you even if it's possible: I have all my mc configuration in
> readonly files (owned by root where readonly isn't enough) so
> it starts up consistently.
I have too many users spread across too many installations to consider such an
approach viable when an unbroken package already exists. I would have been
happen to stick with 4.8.17 if I could have found one anywhere.
http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/m/mc/ skips from 4.8.13 to 4.8.18,
then to 4.8.21.
>> [2] VFS: timestamps not being preserved due to uninitialized struct stat
>> st_[acm]tim.tv_nsec (#3821)
>> http://midnight-commander.org/ticket/3821
> I couldn't understand this one as it only seemed to describe the code
> necessary to fix a bug whose symptoms weren't fully described.
That URL originally came from the mc mailing list thread where I inquired of the
problem and was told the fix was already in git.
https://mail.gnome.org/archives/mc/2017-August/msg00003.html
I couldn't make sense of it either, but the link in the 4.8.20 release notes
seemed an adequate connection to the problem for programmer minds to figure out:
VFS: timestamps not being preserved due to uninitialized struct stat
st_[acm]tim.tv_nsec (#3821)
http://midnight-commander.org/wiki/NEWS-4.8.20
Eventually I added buster to sources.list, installed 4.8.21, then removed the
buster source. This was on my 2GB USB "rescue" stick with Stretch-based Slax 9.5:
https://wiki.trinitydesktop.org/Slax_with_Trinity
https://www.slax.org/gl/
Freespace on the 2GB Slax USB stick complete with KDE3-based TDE GUI desktop
(and systemd) plus my additions is 72%.
--
"Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Whatever else you
get, get wisdom." Proverbs 4:7 (New Living Translation)
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!
Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
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