On Sat, Feb 16, 2019 at 03:01:35PM +1100, Mark Trickett wrote:
> So I have two packages to update, plus any dependencies of libc6 of the
> later version. Now to learn how to find out what that might be. And then to
> see where that leads. Then to install the sane-utils (v 1.0.27) package. The
> capacity to manage and do this is why I am using Debian, but still not
> sufficiently familiar with all of it. I learn by doing, but have not done
> enough of it to know and remember, yet.
I have no idea what version of libc6 you have installed (the last stable
release was ages ago, and i run sid aka unstable anyway) but if you have to
upgrade libc6 to install the new sane packages, then that will trigger an
enormous cascade of other upgrades, likely to result in a lot of breakage.
To put it mildly, this is more trouble than it's worth.
It would be easier to just upgrade to 'sid' or 'testing'. Or compile
backports for the SANE packages yourself.
To install packages from sid or testing with apt, edit your sources.list
file (either /etc/apt/sources.list or a file under /etc/apt/sources.list.d)
and copy the line that lists "stable". change the copy to "testing" or
"unstable".
BTW, you can do a partial upgrade to either sid or testing by:
1. adding entries for either (or both) of them to your sources.list. e.g.
deb http://your.nearest.debian.mirror/debian/ stable main non-free contrib
deb http://your.nearest.debian.mirror/debian/ testing main non-free contrib
deb http://your.nearest.debian.mirror/debian/ unstable main non-free contrib
2. and then adding the following to /etc/apt/apt.conf (or to a file under
/etc/apt/apt.conf.d):
APT::Default-Release "stable";
That makes packages from sid or testing available, but they will NOT be
installed unless you explicitly tell apt to install them with the '-t' (aka
'--target-release') option. e.g.
apt-get update
apt-get -V -d -u -t unstable install sane-utils libsane
That will verbosely show which packages *would* be upgraded and download them.
Verify that the command won't do anything unexpected (like removing other
packages - such as your desktop environment - or upgrading 1000 other
packages) and then run the same command without the "-V" or "-d" options to
actually install them.
As a rule of thumb: if an 'apt-get -t unstable install' wants to remove any
packages or upgrade/install lots of other packages, then abort the upgrade.
BTW. from the apt-get man page:
-t, --target-release, --default-release
This option controls the default input to the policy engine;
it creates a default pin at priority 990 using the specified
release string. This overrides the general settings in
/etc/apt/preferences. Specifically pinned packages are not affected
by the value of this option. In short, this option lets you have
simple control over which distribution packages will be retrieved
from. Some common examples might be -t '2.1*', -t unstable or
-t sid. Configuration Item: APT::Default-Release; see also the
apt_preferences(5) manual page.
NOTE: it is generally better to upgrade entirely to testing or sid (or
backport a required package to stable) than it is to run a combination of
stable + some packages from testing/unstable. You're far less likely to run
into library quirks and version incompatibilities that way.
> > Alternatively, download the debianised source for sane-utils and rebuild
> > for debian 9. i.e. make your own backport.
>
> That has potential, but would need the backport of the libsane as well. I am
> not yet sure of the development and build environment, nor whether I have
> the necessary installed yet.
Both the sane-utils and libsane packages are built from the same source
package, "sane-backends".
BTW, if you use dpkg-buildpackage to build the packages, it will warn you if
any build-dependencies are not met.
If any of this is outside your comfort zone, then it would be better to just
wait until either the new sane packages are in debian backports or until you
upgrade to the next debian stable release. or ask someone you trust who runs
debian stable to backport them for you.
If you want to extend your "comfort zone" then install debian stable into
a VM and try either upgrading to testing or sid in there, or back-porting
sane-backends inside the VM. That way you can get some practice without
putting your system at risk. VMs are great for experimenting with stuff or
learning new stuff that is potentially dangerous. Make one stable VM and then
clone it for every new experiment - if it breaks, it's no big deal: just trash
it and make another clone to try again.
The easiest way to play with VMs is by installing the libvirt packages,
allowing you to create and manipulate VMs and VM images with 'virsh' commands.
The virt-manager package provides a GUI wrapper around virsh, which is good
enough for most usage - there's a lot that virsh can do that virt-manager
can't, but you're very unlikely to need any of those obscure/advanced
features.
craig
--
craig sanders <[email protected]>
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