Re: unixodbc-bin is not available - what to do?

[Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org>]

Chris Green wrote: 
> I'm trying to install the libraries and drivers required to use a
> sqlite3 database with libreoffice writer. However when I try to
> install the required packages I get an error:-
> 
>     root@t470# apt install unixodbc-dev unixodbc-bin unixodbc
>     Reading package lists... Done
>     Building dependency tree... Done
>     Reading state information... Done
>     Package unixodbc-bin is not available, but is referred to by another
>     package.
>     This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
>     is only available from another source
> 
>     E: Package 'unixodbc-bin' has no installation candidate
>     root@t470#
> 
> So what do I need to do to get this working? Ignoring the error and
> continuing fails.
> 
> What I suspect I need is an up to date guide on how to get sqlite3
> working with libreoffice base but I can't find one.  All the guides I
> can find are many years out of date and I suspect that may be the
> reason I'm getting the above error.

If you don't know what you're doing but you do know the tools,
you can generally make progress.

Most packages have at least one man page, and often a README or
other useful doc in /usr/share/docs/package-name


packages.debian.org has a search function, which can helpfully
look at all releases ever. unixodbc-bin hasn't existed since
buster, and says:

This package contains three graphical applications for use with unixODBC, the Open DataBase Connectivity suite: ODBCConfig, a graphical configuration tool for managing database drivers and access to individual databases; DataManager, a simple browser and query tool for ODBC databases; and odbctest, a tool for testing the ODBC API itself. 

The unixodbc.org site says that the last release of odbcconfig
was in 1999.


Now... all that being said, I have no idea why unixodbc would
have anything much to do with sqlite. The essence of sqlite is
that support is built into your program, not an external
database manager, and all you should have to do is specify where
you want a sqlite file to be created.

and indeed, apt show libreoffice-base-drivers says:

 This package contains the database connectivity drivers used by LibreOffices
 database functionality:
  - ODBC
  - JDBC
  - dBase
  - Calc
  - Flat files
 .
 You can extend this by installing:
 .
  * unixodbc: ODBC database support
  * libmyodbc | odbc-postgresql | libsqliteodbc | tdsodbc | odbc-mdbtools: ODBC
    drivers for:
    - MySQL
    - PostgreSQL
    - SQLite
    - MS SQL / Sybase SQL
    - *.mdb (JET / MS Access)
  * libmariadb-java | libpg-java | libjtds-java: JDBC Drivers
    for:
    - MySQL/MariaDB
    - PostgreSQL
    - MS SQL Server and Sybase
  * libreoffice-sdbc-hsqldb: embedded HSQLDB SDBC Driver
  * libreoffice-sdbc-firebird: Firebird SDBC Driver
  * libreoffice-sdbc-postgresql: PostgreSQL SDBC Driver
  * libreoffice-sdbc-mysql: MySQL/MariaDB SDBC Driver


That | symbol means "any of these alternatives will do" and sure
enough:

libsqliteodbc/stable 0.9998-3+b1 amd64

is available to install.

So you should make sure you have libreoffice-base,
libreoffice-base-drivers, and libsqliteodbc installed.

-dsr-