Re: [aclug-L] [debian] Upgrading outside package system

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Carl D Cravens <raven@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> Okay, I've got a dilemma I'm hoping to get some advice on. 
> 
> I'm running Debian 2.0 (hamm).  (I plan to upgrade to 2.1 (slink) soon,
> but it did things it wasn't supposed to do on my test machine (uninstalled
> telnet and telnetd without warning) so I'm a little leery of it.)

Did you use the apt method?  If so, this shouldn't have happened
(knock on wood).  There have been some point releases to address bugs
or security issues; these *may* have addressed that.

> On a system that doesn't use packages, I'd just download whatever version
> I want and upgrade without a thought.  On Debian, this seems like it's

This will not work with such a Perl upgrade, actually.  All the Perl
modules that include C code have to be recompiled to go from 5.003 or
5.004 to 5.005.  This is a part of the difficulty with the upgrade.

Potato will actually allow you to have two versions of Perl on your
system at once.  Those programs that function with both will work with 
either one; thost that require 5.005 will depend on it.  Quite a nice
system, I think.

> going to cause me problems.  I can't upgrade to either of the versions
> included in potato without upgrading libc6, and I'm leery of upgrading to
> libraries out of an unstable package because I don't know what else it
> might affect... I'm rather conservative and prefer to stay entirely in
> stable versions when I can.  (I just know that certain versions of Perl
> are considered stable by the Perl developers, so I feel okay upgrading
> that specific application.)

I do recommend that you not upgrade your libc6 at this time.
Essentially, you have to upgrade your *entire* system to potato if you 
do.

> What I really want to do is just download the latest stable source and
> compile it myself.  But that means when I come along to automatically
> upgrade to slink, it's going to "upgrade" my Perl down to an earlier
> version.  I suppose I could just reinstall the newer Perl on top of it
> again, but I really dislike that option.  (I'll do it if it's the only
> thing I can come up with.) 
> 
> The problem is that many packages are dependent on Perl.  If I try to
> install or upgrade a package that depends on a newer version than what
> dpkg *thinks* I have installed, it'll cause problems. 
> 
> Does anybody have advice on how to get around this problem?

My best advice is to install your newer version entirely in
/usr/local.  This will keep it separate from the "official" version
that comes on the system.  Thus, the Debian packages that use Perl
will continue to work because they will not have to be recompiled.
You can use your own Perl by simply adjusting the #! line in your
scripts.  Debian policy mandates that Debian not modify the files in
/usr/local, so you will be safe.

The only caveat to watch out for: make sure /usr/local/bin is at the
appropriate place on your PATH.  You may want to place it before
/usr/bin (I think this is the default anyway) such that custom
packages that you install will see it first.

-- John