As a general matter, when used consistently on a single archive, apt-get is superb at handling dependency problems. I run Debian Unstable (Sid) mostly, plus a little Debian Stable (Woody) ... I NEVER have a problem with Woody, and only rarely with Sid (they call it Unstable for a reason, and occasionally a package gets updated before a dependency, but the mismatch normally is fixed quickly). In fact, in my experience, you never have to "get those dependencies
so's I can install my prog" ... apt-get automatically identifies dependencies and installs the needed packages to satisfy them.
As to your specific wine problems, I can't suggest anything concrete based on what you've posted, because I can't confirm what you say. For example, you write
I don't know why apt-get listed libarts as a dependency problem associated with wine, because my (Sid) archives does not include libarts among the packages wine depends on:Well, for the first time in my breif apt-getting career, I got a message saying there were dependency problems, and a list of the missing dependencies. So, I says to myself: "heck, I better get those dependencies so's I can install my prog." So, I went first after one called "libarts." Big mistake.
autovcr@kuryakin:~$ apt-cache show wine
Package: wine
[...]
Depends: debconf, libwine (= 0.0.20021125-1), xbase-clients (>= 4.0) | xcontrib
Suggests: wine-doc, winesetup, msttcorefonts, binfmt-support
Conflicts: binfmt-support (<< 1.1.2)
You then write:
This puzzles me, because apt-get and aptitude are supposed to use the same /etc/apt/sources.list to get their package lists; I don't understand what Libranet did to them to cause them to access different package archives. Nor do I quite understand what you mean by "deleted" ... dependency problems can cause package not to operate properly, but they don't typically depete files. (Unless you did a "dist-upgrade" in there somewhere ... this option causes apt to be a bit more aggressive in trying to resolve particularly ugly dependency mismatches, and using it with a downgrade -- from unstable to stable -- might do anything.)Installing libarts caused major portions of KDE to be deleted: apparently what happend is that I got libarts from stable Debian, which, as I understand it, is part of KDE and KDE in stable Debian is 2.x while I had KDE 3.x on my Libranet system.
The main lesson is to stick to a single archive ... even mixing Woody and Sid packages is not for the inexperienced.
Final comment -- you write:
I can see no reason why I should have dependecy problems on a freshly installedActually, missing dependencies are commonplace on all full-size Linux systems, because, increasingly, packages use a wide mix of libraries, far too many possibilities to install them all in a base install. Also, some packages use libraries with licensing problems (e.g., some audio and video codecs), and you need to install them from "unofficial" archives, not the base Debian ones. Systems like apt do more than identify the missing dependencies; they automatically install them for you, for this very reason ... so they do not become a "problem". (I'm not current on using rpm-based tools, but I've no doubt they handle missing dependencies in some manner analogous to apt-get's approach.)
system.
It may be that Libranet has introduced some problems in spinning off from Debian Woody. Or you may have made some mistake that I'm not seeing from your description of what you did. Personally, I'd think your best bet was to move away from "commercial Debian variants" completely and use Debian itself. Or, since you seem to be *paying* for Libranet, to get some serious technical support from them.
At 11:06 AM 12/24/02 -0600, James Miller wrote:
Well, I decided on what appeared to be the most user-friendly of the commercial Debian variants to go on my machine - Libranet. So far, I'm not as happy with it as I was with Knoppix. For one thing, it seems that apt-getting is a restricted process under Libranet. They have an app called "Aptitude" that, I've discovered, one should by all means use for installing new packages. Here's the way I learned this: I noted that there were some dependency problems with WINE (more on that later), so I decided to apt-get it using Aptitude. I was not having much success, so I said to myself: "why I am I screwing around with this Aptitude prophylactic when I can just open a console and apt-get the thing?" So, that's what I did. Well, for the first time in my breif apt-getting career, I got a message saying there were dependency problems, and a list of the missing dependencies. So, I says to myself: "heck, I better get those dependencies so's I can install my prog." So, I went first after one called "libarts." Big mistake. Installing libarts caused major portions of KDE to be deleted: apparently what happend is that I got libarts from stable Debian, which, as I understand it, is part of KDE and KDE in stable Debian is 2.x while I had KDE 3.x on my Libranet system. To make a long story short, the most expedient way of restoring KDE proved to be reinstalling Libranet. So, I decided I may only apt-get at my own risk on this system, most of the time being constrained by Aptitude and its peculiarities.Here's another problem I've had. I tried to get Lyx using Aptitude, but have again encountered dependency problems. My question regarding this is whether dependency problems are endemic to apt-get as they are to the package installing methods of other well-known distros? I never ran into any dependency problems on the Knoppix test system I had when trying to apt-get. Was I simply lucky? Are the dependecy problems I'm having traceable to shortcomings in Aptitude, or are they part of life using apt-get from a console as well? Finally, does it seem to you, as it does to me, that my initial problems with WINE are a reflection of deficiencies in the distro I'm using? I can see no reason why I should have dependecy problems on a freshly installed system. I was never asked during the install process whether I wanted to leave out any libraries or anything. Rather, I selected pretty much the default install option, adding a couple of additional package groups from the list with which I was presented. That indicates to me that either they have poorly constructed this distribution, leaving out key elements of an important package, or else their Aptitude program is buggy and is wrongly reporting dependency problems. If either of these are true, I question whether I should go through with payment on this distro, since it seems still to be at the beta stage. Feedback from the more knowledgeable on this list will be appreciated.
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