Re: Jessie --> Stretch upgrade, apt question

[David Wright]

On Thu 29 Jun 2017 at 07:31:35 (+), Curt wrote:
> On 2017-06-28, David Wright  wrote:
> >
> >> 'apt-get install ' will tell you why a package is being held
> >> back (or, as discussed in another thread, will ask your permission to
> >> install an extra package--or packages--in order to meet its dependencies).
> >
> > It's less risky to add the -s switch and just be a user, thus:
> 
> I wasn't aware of that.
> 
> > $ apt-get -s install 
> 
> However:
> 
> curty@einstein:~$ apt-get -s install bzflag
> NOTE: This is only a simulation!
>   apt-get needs root privileges for real execution.
>   Keep also in mind that locking is deactivated,
>   so don't depend on the relevance to the real current
>   situation!
> 
> I suppose 'locking is deactivated, so don't depend on the relevance to the
> real current situation!" might mean on a multi-user system on which the
> administrator is fiddling with a package manager concurrently, the
> output of your command might or might not reflect reality.

Yes, that's the meaning of the disclaimer, but I've always assumed
that almost everyone here is an administrator for their system(s).
However, some are very timorous when it comes to running the apt*
package managers, particularly as root.

>  [Re: apt-get upgrade problem] >>> What?
> 
> > Attached…
> 
> So you were facetiously applying my query to the Woolf signature quote
> (which I don't see and didn't think anybody was seeing and assumed was
> being snipped by the list master along with all the other conformingly
> formatted signatures).

I can't see the point of using a signature that can't be seen.
My mutt client displays them (coloured when conforming), both
when composing messages (which allows for tweaking) and when
reading them. I also see them in the list archives.

Cheers,
David.

Re: Jessie --> Stretch upgrade, apt question

[Curt]

On 2017-06-28, David Wright  wrote:
>
>> 'apt-get install ' will tell you why a package is being held
>> back (or, as discussed in another thread, will ask your permission to
>> install an extra package--or packages--in order to meet its dependencies).
>
> It's less risky to add the -s switch and just be a user, thus:

I wasn't aware of that.

> $ apt-get -s install 

However:

curty@einstein:~$ apt-get -s install bzflag
NOTE: This is only a simulation!
  apt-get needs root privileges for real execution.
  Keep also in mind that locking is deactivated,
  so don't depend on the relevance to the real current
  situation!

I suppose 'locking is deactivated, so don't depend on the relevance to the
real current situation!" might mean on a multi-user system on which the
administrator is fiddling with a package manager concurrently, the
output of your command might or might not reflect reality.

 [Re: apt-get upgrade problem] >>> What?

> Attached…

So you were facetiously applying my query to the Woolf signature quote
(which I don't see and didn't think anybody was seeing and assumed was
being snipped by the list master along with all the other conformingly
formatted signatures).

> Cheers,
> David.
>

-- 
“Yeah yeah.” --Sidney Morgenbesser's retort to a speaker who said that although
there are many cases in which two negatives make a positive, he knew of no case
in which two positives made a negative.

Re: Jessie --> Stretch upgrade, apt question

[David Wright]

On Sun 25 Jun 2017 at 11:36:37 (+), Curt wrote:
> On 2017-06-25, Mark Fletcher  wrote:
> >
> > My question is that since the upgrade chromium is held back from 
> > upgrading, and in this new world I don't know how to find out why. In 
> > aptitude I would have done aptitude why-not chromium and it would most 
> > likely have told me something useful about its dependencies. How can I 
> > get apt to do similar? Or what tool should I use?
> >
> 
> 'apt-get install ' will tell you why a package is being held
> back (or, as discussed in another thread, will ask your permission to
> install an extra package--or packages--in order to meet its dependencies).

It's less risky to add the -s switch and just be a user, thus:

$ apt-get -s install 

>>> [Re: apt-get upgrade problem] >>> What?

Attached…

Cheers,
David.

Re: Jessie --> Stretch upgrade, apt question

[Brian]

On Wed 28 Jun 2017 at 22:19:18 +0900, Mark Fletcher wrote:

> On Sun, Jun 25, 2017 at 11:18:46AM +0200, Dejan Jocic wrote:
> > 
> > In short, use aptitude for why and why-not. Closest thing apt-get and
> > friends have would be apt-cache --important depends/rdepends. But,
> > aptitude is much better suited for that task. And for all other tasks
> > that involve advanced searching, as far as I could tell. As for apt
> > itself, would not know exactly, I refuse to use tool with man page that
> > treats me like an idiot, while not giving me anything new and important
> > compared to apt-get and friends. But guess would be that it is apt
> > --important depends/rdepends. And probably not more helpful than
> > apt-cache variant.
> > 
> 
> Hmmm. So we end up using apt-get for major version upgrades (according 
> to the recommendations of the release notes), apt most of the time 
> (according to the recommendation of all the tools, including apt-get, 
> when the slightest thing goes wrong), and aptitude when neither apt-get 
> or apt have a good way to do something? Seems like this area of Debian 
> could use a cleanup.
> 
> Thanks for the reply though.

Dejan Jocic makes a fair point contasting the search aspects of aptitude
and apt-cache and questions whether apt provides anything significantly
more than apt-get.

I think you are reading too much into his reply. For example, I suspect
aptitude would handle a major version upgrade just as well as apt-get.
No doubt it has been done successfully; day-to-day upgrades too. I do
not know where apt fits into this picture; it provides fluffiness,
perhaps.

What would a cleanup involve?

Re: Jessie --> Stretch upgrade, apt question

[Mark Fletcher]

On Sun, Jun 25, 2017 at 11:36:37AM +, Curt wrote:
> On 2017-06-25, Mark Fletcher  wrote:
> >
> > My question is that since the upgrade chromium is held back from 
> > upgrading, and in this new world I don't know how to find out why. In 
> > aptitude I would have done aptitude why-not chromium and it would most 
> > likely have told me something useful about its dependencies. How can I 
> > get apt to do similar? Or what tool should I use?
> >
> 
> 'apt-get install ' will tell you why a package is being held
> back (or, as discussed in another thread, will ask your permission to
> install an extra package--or packages--in order to meet its dependencies).
> 

It did indeed -- turns out libgnutls depended on libtrm1 (sp?) but the 
version required "is not going to be installed".

And the reason for THAT turned out to be that a while back, while still 
on Jessie I experimented with the deb-multimedia repository and that 
repository uses incompatible version numbers for (at least) some 
packages, which resulted in the version from the jessie deb-multimedia 
repository not being upgraded to the new stretch version, causing 
version incompatibilities.

I was musing on how to solve that when I, in an entirely separate thread 
of thought, decided to install the zoneminder software for monitoring 
security cameras. The version of it packaged for stretch is offered in 
the... deb-multimedia repository. So I have ended up adding it back to 
my system, doing which resolved the issue anyway.

Mark

Re: Jessie --> Stretch upgrade, apt question

[Mark Fletcher]

On Sun, Jun 25, 2017 at 11:18:46AM +0200, Dejan Jocic wrote:
> On 25-06-17, Mark Fletcher wrote:
> > Hello the list!
> > 
> > I have upgraded this weekend from Jessie to Stretch. All went, overall, 
> > reasonably smoothly -- the documentation around releases is getting 
> > better and better. I plan to write a full report of the upgrade and 
> > share it here shortly. In the meantime I have one question.
> > 
> > It seems like aptitude is falling out of favour in stretch, and apt as a 
> > command line tool as opposed to the name for the general entire package 
> > management system is being recommended these days. I've never been a 
> > huge fan of apt-get (although to be fair that means little more than I 
> > settled on aptitude [command-line version not ncurses version] and 
> > learned its quirks a long time ago) and so I am, somewhat reluctantly, 
> > making the switch to apt from aptitude. apt has a couple of features I 
> > really like, but I do wish apt show made it easier to tell if a package 
> > is installed -- you have to read a lot further down the info to find 
> > out.
> > 
> > My question is that since the upgrade chromium is held back from 
> > upgrading, and in this new world I don't know how to find out why. In 
> > aptitude I would have done aptitude why-not chromium and it would most 
> > likely have told me something useful about its dependencies. How can I 
> > get apt to do similar? Or what tool should I use?
> > 
> > I'm aware that apt-cache depends chromium will tell me what it depends 
> > on, but that doesn't tell me what is stopping it from being upgraded.
> > 
> > sudo apt upgrade and sudo apt full-upgrade both just tell me chromium 
> > has been kept back, but not why.
> > 
> > sudo apt --fix-broken install finds nothing to do.
> > 
> > Suggestions would be much appreciated.
> > 
> > Mark
> > 
> 
> In short, use aptitude for why and why-not. Closest thing apt-get and
> friends have would be apt-cache --important depends/rdepends. But,
> aptitude is much better suited for that task. And for all other tasks
> that involve advanced searching, as far as I could tell. As for apt
> itself, would not know exactly, I refuse to use tool with man page that
> treats me like an idiot, while not giving me anything new and important
> compared to apt-get and friends. But guess would be that it is apt
> --important depends/rdepends. And probably not more helpful than
> apt-cache variant.
> 

Hmmm. So we end up using apt-get for major version upgrades (according 
to the recommendations of the release notes), apt most of the time 
(according to the recommendation of all the tools, including apt-get, 
when the slightest thing goes wrong), and aptitude when neither apt-get 
or apt have a good way to do something? Seems like this area of Debian 
could use a cleanup.

Thanks for the reply though.

Mark

Re: Jessie --> Stretch upgrade, apt question

[Mark Fletcher]

On Sun, Jun 25, 2017 at 12:29:27PM -0700, Cousin Stanley wrote:
> Mark Fletcher wrote:
> 
> > 
> > I do wish apt show made it easier to tell 
> > if a package is installed 
> > 
> 
>   $ apt policy some-pkg-name
> 
> which evolved from
> 
>   $ apt-cache policy pkg-name
> 
> 
>   will display installation status
>   of some-pkg-name
> 
Thanks all for the replies. Thanks to your help I have made progress and 
found what dependency issue is causing the problem. Unfortunately I am 
running late for work now so will reply later with more detail on which 
solution helped me with what, for the record.

Thanks again

Mark

Re: Jessie --> Stretch upgrade, apt question

[Cousin Stanley]

Mark Fletcher wrote:

> 
> I do wish apt show made it easier to tell 
> if a package is installed 
> 

  $ apt policy some-pkg-name

which evolved from

  $ apt-cache policy pkg-name


  will display installation status
  of some-pkg-name



-- 
Stanley C. Kitching
Human Being
Phoenix, Arizona

Re: Jessie --> Stretch upgrade, apt question

[Curt]

On 2017-06-25, Mark Fletcher  wrote:
>
> My question is that since the upgrade chromium is held back from 
> upgrading, and in this new world I don't know how to find out why. In 
> aptitude I would have done aptitude why-not chromium and it would most 
> likely have told me something useful about its dependencies. How can I 
> get apt to do similar? Or what tool should I use?
>

'apt-get install ' will tell you why a package is being held
back (or, as discussed in another thread, will ask your permission to
install an extra package--or packages--in order to meet its dependencies).

-- 
"It might be a vision--of a shell, of a wheelbarrow, of a fairy kingdom on the
far side of the hedge; or it might be the glory of speed; no one knew." --Mrs.
Ramsay, speculating on why her little daughter might be dashing about, in "To
the Lighthouse," by Virginia Woolf.

Re: Jessie --> Stretch upgrade, apt question

[Dejan Jocic]

On 25-06-17, Mark Fletcher wrote:
> Hello the list!
> 
> I have upgraded this weekend from Jessie to Stretch. All went, overall, 
> reasonably smoothly -- the documentation around releases is getting 
> better and better. I plan to write a full report of the upgrade and 
> share it here shortly. In the meantime I have one question.
> 
> It seems like aptitude is falling out of favour in stretch, and apt as a 
> command line tool as opposed to the name for the general entire package 
> management system is being recommended these days. I've never been a 
> huge fan of apt-get (although to be fair that means little more than I 
> settled on aptitude [command-line version not ncurses version] and 
> learned its quirks a long time ago) and so I am, somewhat reluctantly, 
> making the switch to apt from aptitude. apt has a couple of features I 
> really like, but I do wish apt show made it easier to tell if a package 
> is installed -- you have to read a lot further down the info to find 
> out.
> 
> My question is that since the upgrade chromium is held back from 
> upgrading, and in this new world I don't know how to find out why. In 
> aptitude I would have done aptitude why-not chromium and it would most 
> likely have told me something useful about its dependencies. How can I 
> get apt to do similar? Or what tool should I use?
> 
> I'm aware that apt-cache depends chromium will tell me what it depends 
> on, but that doesn't tell me what is stopping it from being upgraded.
> 
> sudo apt upgrade and sudo apt full-upgrade both just tell me chromium 
> has been kept back, but not why.
> 
> sudo apt --fix-broken install finds nothing to do.
> 
> Suggestions would be much appreciated.
> 
> Mark
> 

In short, use aptitude for why and why-not. Closest thing apt-get and
friends have would be apt-cache --important depends/rdepends. But,
aptitude is much better suited for that task. And for all other tasks
that involve advanced searching, as far as I could tell. As for apt
itself, would not know exactly, I refuse to use tool with man page that
treats me like an idiot, while not giving me anything new and important
compared to apt-get and friends. But guess would be that it is apt
--important depends/rdepends. And probably not more helpful than
apt-cache variant.

Jessie --> Stretch upgrade, apt question

[Mark Fletcher]

Hello the list!

I have upgraded this weekend from Jessie to Stretch. All went, overall, 
reasonably smoothly -- the documentation around releases is getting 
better and better. I plan to write a full report of the upgrade and 
share it here shortly. In the meantime I have one question.

It seems like aptitude is falling out of favour in stretch, and apt as a 
command line tool as opposed to the name for the general entire package 
management system is being recommended these days. I've never been a 
huge fan of apt-get (although to be fair that means little more than I 
settled on aptitude [command-line version not ncurses version] and 
learned its quirks a long time ago) and so I am, somewhat reluctantly, 
making the switch to apt from aptitude. apt has a couple of features I 
really like, but I do wish apt show made it easier to tell if a package 
is installed -- you have to read a lot further down the info to find 
out.

My question is that since the upgrade chromium is held back from 
upgrading, and in this new world I don't know how to find out why. In 
aptitude I would have done aptitude why-not chromium and it would most 
likely have told me something useful about its dependencies. How can I 
get apt to do similar? Or what tool should I use?

I'm aware that apt-cache depends chromium will tell me what it depends 
on, but that doesn't tell me what is stopping it from being upgraded.

sudo apt upgrade and sudo apt full-upgrade both just tell me chromium 
has been kept back, but not why.

sudo apt --fix-broken install finds nothing to do.

Suggestions would be much appreciated.

Mark