On Sat, Jan 19, 2002 at 09:52:10PM -0600, Colin Watson wrote: > On Fri, Jan 18, 2002 at 02:40:06PM -0500, sam rosenfeld wrote: > > I have tried unsuccessfully to install many packages and programs -- > > from math programs to pine, sawfish and libc6.2. In most cases the > > problem is one in which the 'make' closes with errors that list > > dependencies it could not find. Occasionally, and perhaps unrelated, > > the error message reads something like: expecting "fil2" and could not > > find the file. > > You'll have to be more specific. It's possible that you only have > runtime versions of libraries involved, while you need development > (-dev) versions in order to build programs that link against them.
I confess that I know next to nothing about the distinction between runtime and development versions of the libraries. Can you recommend where I can read about what these versions are, why we need two versions of the libraries, and how the two versions are used? (It may be obvious that I have not studied either Linux or Debian very systematically. Is the Linux Documentation Project a good place to search for remedies for my ignorance?) > > The dpkg -i and apt-get install gives me similar problems. > > Those will be entirely different from the errors output by make. Again, > details would help. Don't expect routinely to be able to install > packages from woody/sid on a potato system, though. Does your word "routinely" imply that I shouldn't be able to install packages from woody/sid etc. without a fairly deep knowledge of debian? In the meantime, that is while I am still a novice, must I do without all those seductive packages which rely on woody dependencies, especially later versions of libc? sam
