Re: What is happening to testing/unstable?
On 19 Jun 2002, Colin Watson wrote: [snip] I also tried a specific upgrade to the new version of mozilla (1.0.0) which is listed in unstable but was told that my version (from testing) was the latest, which it isn't. Sounds like a buggy apt preferences file, assuming that that's what you're using. I don't have such a file. I didn't have /etc/apt.conf either, but I copied it from /usr/share/doc/apt/examples. But something seems to be wrong with apt-get. I have no /var/cache/apt/available and /var/lib/dpkg/available has nothing in it. Something is apparently misconfigured, but what??? Anthony -- Anthony Campbell - running Linux GNU/Debian (Windows-free zone) For electronic books on the Assassins and on homeopathy, skeptical essays, and over 170 book reviews, go to: http://www.acampbell.org.uk/ Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. [Carl Sagan] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What is happening to testing/unstable?
On Thu, Jun 20, 2002 at 10:24:54AM +0100, Anthony Campbell wrote: On 19 Jun 2002, Colin Watson wrote: I also tried a specific upgrade to the new version of mozilla (1.0.0) which is listed in unstable but was told that my version (from testing) was the latest, which it isn't. Sounds like a buggy apt preferences file, assuming that that's what you're using. I don't have such a file. I didn't have /etc/apt.conf either, but I copied it from /usr/share/doc/apt/examples. It should be /etc/apt/apt.conf rather than /etc/apt.conf. What's in /etc/apt/sources.list? But something seems to be wrong with apt-get. I have no /var/cache/apt/available That shouldn't exist anyway: just archives, pkgcache.bin, and possibly srcpkgcache.bin. and /var/lib/dpkg/available has nothing in it. Run 'dselect update'. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What is happening to testing/unstable?
On 20 Jun 2002, Colin Watson wrote: On Thu, Jun 20, 2002 at 10:24:54AM +0100, Anthony Campbell wrote: On 19 Jun 2002, Colin Watson wrote: I also tried a specific upgrade to the new version of mozilla (1.0.0) which is listed in unstable but was told that my version (from testing) was the latest, which it isn't. Sounds like a buggy apt preferences file, assuming that that's what you're using. I don't have such a file. I didn't have /etc/apt.conf either, but I copied it from /usr/share/doc/apt/examples. It should be /etc/apt/apt.conf rather than /etc/apt.conf. What's in /etc/apt/sources.list? Sorry, typo; I had it as /etc/apt/apt.conf But something seems to be wrong with apt-get. I have no /var/cache/apt/available That shouldn't exist anyway: just archives, pkgcache.bin, and possibly srcpkgcache.bin. and /var/lib/dpkg/available has nothing in it. Run 'dselect update'. Many thanks; that seems to have fixed it! Isn't it supposed to be run automatically by apt-get? Anthony -- Anthony Campbell - running Linux GNU/Debian (Windows-free zone) For electronic books on the Assassins and on homeopathy, skeptical essays, and over 170 book reviews, go to: http://www.acampbell.org.uk/ Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. [Carl Sagan] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What is happening to testing/unstable?
On Thu, Jun 20, 2002 at 11:50:58AM +0100, Anthony Campbell wrote: On 20 Jun 2002, Colin Watson wrote: Run 'dselect update'. Many thanks; that seems to have fixed it! Isn't it supposed to be run automatically by apt-get? No; 'dselect update' is a superset of 'apt-get update' (if dselect is configured to use the apt method, which is the default these days), not the other way round. Arguably it shouldn't be that way, but there are a number of complicated historical reasons. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What is happening to testing/unstable?
On 20 Jun 2002, Colin Watson wrote: On Thu, Jun 20, 2002 at 11:50:58AM +0100, Anthony Campbell wrote: On 20 Jun 2002, Colin Watson wrote: Run 'dselect update'. Many thanks; that seems to have fixed it! Isn't it supposed to be run automatically by apt-get? No; 'dselect update' is a superset of 'apt-get update' (if dselect is configured to use the apt method, which is the default these days), not the other way round. Arguably it shouldn't be that way, but there are a number of complicated historical reasons. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] I'm not clear what you mean by a superset. In the past, running apt-get update was enough to produce a list of things to be upgraded. Has something changed? If we need to run dselect update as well, shouldn't that be documented somewhere? (Perhaps it is but I haven't seen it.) I'm now somewhat confused. AC -- Anthony Campbell - running Linux GNU/Debian (Windows-free zone) For electronic books on the Assassins and on homeopathy, skeptical essays, and over 170 book reviews, go to: http://www.acampbell.org.uk/ Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. [Carl Sagan] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What is happening to testing/unstable?
On Thu, Jun 20, 2002 at 02:21:30PM +0100, Anthony Campbell wrote: On 20 Jun 2002, Colin Watson wrote: No; 'dselect update' is a superset of 'apt-get update' (if dselect is configured to use the apt method, which is the default these days), not the other way round. Arguably it shouldn't be that way, but there are a number of complicated historical reasons. I'm not clear what you mean by a superset. In the past, running apt-get update was enough to produce a list of things to be upgraded. Has something changed? 'apt-get update' has never updated dpkg's available file. Very likely you just never noticed this before. If we need to run dselect update as well, If you care about dpkg's available file being up-to-date, you need to run 'dselect update', which runs 'apt-get update' for you. You don't need to run 'apt-get update' as well. I do find it rather strange that this fixed your original problem, though, considering that you said you were just using apt-get. I only suggested 'dselect update' because you pointed out that /var/lib/dpkg/available was empty. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What is happening to testing/unstable?
On 20 Jun 2002, Colin Watson wrote: On Thu, Jun 20, 2002 at 02:21:30PM +0100, Anthony Campbell wrote: On 20 Jun 2002, Colin Watson wrote: No; 'dselect update' is a superset of 'apt-get update' (if dselect is configured to use the apt method, which is the default these days), not the other way round. Arguably it shouldn't be that way, but there are a number of complicated historical reasons. I'm not clear what you mean by a superset. In the past, running apt-get update was enough to produce a list of things to be upgraded. Has something changed? 'apt-get update' has never updated dpkg's available file. Very likely you just never noticed this before. If we need to run dselect update as well, If you care about dpkg's available file being up-to-date, you need to run 'dselect update', which runs 'apt-get update' for you. You don't need to run 'apt-get update' as well. I do find it rather strange that this fixed your original problem, though, considering that you said you were just using apt-get. I only suggested 'dselect update' because you pointed out that /var/lib/dpkg/available was empty. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] I find it odd too; I had a script which ran apt-get update followed by apt-get dist-upgrade and for many months that worked correctly. However, I shall now change to dselect update. Anthony -- Anthony Campbell - running Linux GNU/Debian (Windows-free zone) For electronic books on the Assassins and on homeopathy, skeptical essays, and over 170 book reviews, go to: http://www.acampbell.org.uk/ Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. [Carl Sagan] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What is happening to testing/unstable?
On Thu, Jun 20, 2002 at 02:47:39PM +0100, Colin Watson wrote: 'apt-get update' has never updated dpkg's available file. Very likely you just never noticed this before. That's odd. I haven't used dselect since just after I installed Debian here, now many months ago, but my /var/lib/dpkg/available file is up-to-date. I just use apt-get update/apt-get dist-upgrade. -- Note that I use Debian version 3.0 Linux mus 2.4.17mvz5 #1 Sun Jun 2 15:16:44 CEST 2002 i686 unknown Matijs van Zuijlen ... designed to fill holes or cracks of not more than two cubic vims. -- Robert Sheckley, Untouched by Human Hands pgp3aHh83S2eK.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: What is happening to testing/unstable?
On Thu, 2002-06-20 at 11:48, Matijs van Zuijlen wrote: On Thu, Jun 20, 2002 at 02:47:39PM +0100, Colin Watson wrote: 'apt-get update' has never updated dpkg's available file. Very likely you just never noticed this before. That's odd. I haven't used dselect since just after I installed Debian here, now many months ago, but my /var/lib/dpkg/available file is up-to-date. I just use apt-get update/apt-get dist-upgrade. Same here, except it's apt-get upgrade... -- +-+ | Ron Johnson, Jr.Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://ronandheather.dhs.org:81 | | | | Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea | | which could only have originated in California. | | --Edsger Dijkstra | +-+ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What is happening to testing/unstable?
Lo, on Thursday, June 20, Colin Watson did write: If you care about dpkg's available file being up-to-date, you need to run 'dselect update', which runs 'apt-get update' for you. You don't need to run 'apt-get update' as well. Pardon the somewhat elementary question, but what is dpkg's available file used for, and why would I need it to be up to date? Richard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What is happening to testing/unstable?
* Richard Cobbe ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [020620 15:59]: Lo, on Thursday, June 20, Colin Watson did write: If you care about dpkg's available file being up-to-date, you need to run 'dselect update', which runs 'apt-get update' for you. You don't need to run 'apt-get update' as well. Pardon the somewhat elementary question, but what is dpkg's available file used for, and why would I need it to be up to date? My understanding is that dpkg is the debian package manager, and apt is a tool used for downloading debs. dpkg can use various methods for getting debs: they can be sitting on your hard disk, on a cdrom, can be downloaded by ftp, etc. But pretty much everyone uses the apt backend to dselect. Apt knows how to keep track of debs available from various sources, and knows how to ask dpkg to install them once they've been downloaded. But it doesn't mess with dpkg's database of what versions of what packages are available. That's how I see the system working, but be warned, I'm just a user, too! =) In any case, it seems like you can pretty safely manage a system using only apt, but that it's slightly more proper to use dselect update instead of apt-get update because then dpkg's database contains current information as well, so that things like dpkg -p and dselect will work. If you're one of many people who fears dselect and vows never to use it, and uses apt-cache instead of the dpkg tools, then you can probably just keep using apt-get update and be no worse off for it. Myself, I like to use dselect update, pretty much just because it doesn't cost me anything extra, and I always have the option of using dselect or dpkg -p (or anything else that uses dpkg's available database that's not on the top of my head right now...). I guess _that_ was really the question you asked, though: what is it used for. Well, at least dpkg and dselect use it, maybe other things, too. Hopefully someone else can expand on that point. good times, Vineet -- http://www.doorstop.net/ -- http://www.anti-dmca.org/ pgpLiX8vJgIHo.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: What is happening to testing/unstable?
On Thu, Jun 20, 2002 at 05:15:24PM -0500, Richard Cobbe wrote: Lo, on Thursday, June 20, Colin Watson did write: If you care about dpkg's available file being up-to-date, you need to run 'dselect update', which runs 'apt-get update' for you. You don't need to run 'apt-get update' as well. Pardon the somewhat elementary question, but what is dpkg's available file used for, and why would I need it to be up to date? Package management interfaces that don't exclusively use the apt libraries, such as 'dpkg -p', 'dpkg -l', dselect, and tasksel. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
What is happening to testing/unstable?
For some time now I have had nothing new from testing; I assumed this was because of the freeze. However, the same seems to be happening with unstable. I do an apt-get update and get the list of packages, but nothing is scheduled to be upgraded. I mean that apt-get -s dist-upgrade shows nothing to be done, which seems odd. I also tried a specific upgrade to the new version of mozilla (1.0.0) which is listed in unstable but was told that my version (from testing) was the latest, which it isn't. I don't understand what is happening here. Anthony -- Anthony Campbell - running Linux GNU/Debian (Windows-free zone) For electronic books on the Assassins and on homeopathy, skeptical essays, and over 170 book reviews, go to: http://www.acampbell.org.uk/ Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. [Carl Sagan] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What is happening to testing/unstable?
On Wed, Jun 19, 2002 at 03:59:30PM +0100, Anthony Campbell wrote: For some time now I have had nothing new from testing; I assumed this was because of the freeze. However, the same seems to be happening with unstable. I do an apt-get update and get the list of packages, but nothing is scheduled to be upgraded. I mean that apt-get -s dist-upgrade shows nothing to be done, which seems odd. Unstable is still moving; it's just a bit slow at the moment. I think a lot of maintainers are either taking something of a break until woody is released or working on big time-consuming changes that they had to put off until after the freeze. I know I'm doing a bit of both. I also tried a specific upgrade to the new version of mozilla (1.0.0) which is listed in unstable but was told that my version (from testing) was the latest, which it isn't. Sounds like a buggy apt preferences file, assuming that that's what you're using. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
