Re: [aclug-L] Debian package management

["Clint A. Brubakken" <cabrubak@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

on your debian cd, in a special directorty (i'm not sure where) is apt,
install apt, (there are instructions there too) and you can use apt as a
dselect method, so not all packages have to com from the same source



On Tue, 2 Mar 1999, Greg House wrote:

> Ok, ignorant question time.  I've only recently started using Debian and
> it's package manager is confusing me.  I can get dselect to work with the
> packages on the CD reasonably well.  Problem is that I can't seem to get it
> to find debs I stick in a directory somewhere.
> 
> This is my sob story:  Debian 2.0.2 shipped with XFree86 3.3.2.3 (or
> something such) and I need the absolute most current (3.3.3.1) to get
> support for the video card I'm using (Diamond Speedstar A50 (AGP)).  I had
> RedHat on this system last week and it got wiped and I decided to use Debian
> instead.
> 
> This whole deal's been a real headache since I started.  I checked the
> supported cards list at www.xfree86.org before I bought this thing, and it
> said it was supported.  But what they didn't tell me was that support for it
> has only recently been added and it's not very good yet.  Ok, so I find the
> rpms for 3.3.3.1 on RedHat's ftp site.  Not a big problem.  I fight with the
> Zip drive (see last msg...) 'cause the machine I'm installing on isn't
> networked.  Put them in and then I have to disable all the hardware
> acceleration and stuff the card does to get it to work at all with X.  I'm
> less then pleased...
> 
> Enter Windows98.  This isn't my machine, the owner wanted it to dual-boot
> Windows.  I'd already installed Linux and when I install W98, it trashes my
> Linux partitions (thank you Bill Gates).  So I install W98 and the drivers
> from Diamond and the card looks great.  I can get 1024x768 24bit color and
> it looks great.  Back to Linux.
> 
> I install Debian instead of Red Hat, then go searching for debs for XFree86
> 3.3.3.1 at debian.org.  Gee...there aren't any!  How convenient...  Oh wait,
> there's a utility on debian to use rpms, I think I can use the rpms I
> already have...  So I go hunting and find the alian utility, looks great.  I
> find iti on the CD and install it.  Pop in the rpms and it complains that it
> can't install the deb it created from the rpm.  Um...can't tell exactly why,
> very cryptic.
> 
> Ok, so I can't use the rpms.  That means I have to go back to the tarballs
> from xfree86.org and bypass the package manager.  Ugh, don't really like
> that...but I'm getting impatient and so is the guy this system's going to.
> For some reason, I was thinking Debian was using glibc, so I download that
> version.  By that time it's late and I don't want to fight with the zip
> xfer, so I leave it.  The next night is the ACLUG meeting, where I hear that
> Debian is based on libc6, not glibc.  Great, got the wrong tarballs.  So I
> grab the ppa zip drive and take it to work with me.  In poking around the
> Debian mailing list archives,  I found where one of the Debian developers
> had built (preliminary) packages for 3.3.3.1, ok, I decide to give them a
> try instead of bypassing the package manager.
> 
> dselect is just totally counterintuitive to me for doing something like
> this.  What happened to something simple like "rpm -U <package-file>"?  I
> guess I could use dpkg, but it doesn't appear to have an upgrade package
> option, just remove and install.
> 
> Oh yeah, and the Debian packages have debs for a whole bunch of adjunct
> functions so after weeding out the X servers I don't need, I still have have
> 36 debs that need to be installed.  All of which are probably already
> installed in a previous incarnation.  Do I have to do every one of these one
> at a time?  What a pain.
> 
> Enough whining...  Can someone tell me how to make dselect find these things
> and install them?
> 
> Oh yeah, if anyone wants deb packages for XFree86 3.3.3.1, they're at
> http://master.debian.org/~vincent/xfree-3.3.3.1/
> 
> Thanks,
> Greg
> 
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