Problem installing apt

[alsaf]

I posted a topic hear this afternoon about trying to install apt on the minibook. I think it got deleted as spam for some reason. I have posted the details on my blog:

http://cnm-minibook-mucking-about.blogspot.com/2009/04/installing-apt.html

I think I know what the problem is. When I type in the command apt-get upgrade, it looks like it is using the woody rather than etch repository. Does anybody know what entries I should put in the /etc/apt/sources.list file to get etch repositories?

[wicknix]

Try these:

# regular updates for etch
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ etch main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ etch main contrib non-free

# security updates for etch
deb http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib non-free

# multimedia     (was: ftp.nerim.net)
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org etch main
deb-src http://www.debian-multimedia.org etch main

# unofficial      http://www.debian-unofficial.org
deb http://ftp.debian-unofficial.org/debian etch main contrib non-free restricted
deb-src http://ftp.debian-unofficial.org/debian etch main contrib non-free restricted

Being that neither the default OS or 3MX is true debian there is a good chance installing apt will end up breaking a few things or even possibly break everything. Would be interesting to see if it works though. Good luck.

Cheers.

[utd_grant]

I don't know too much about the internal workings of apt-get, but I was wondering if it was even possible to build applications from source on the LLL. Does it have the appropriate compilers, libraries, headers, etc. installed ?

[alsaf]

Thanks wicknix.

I only used the etch regular update repository and I think I've manged to get the libc6 dependency of apt installed when I enter apt-get -f install (to install the other dependencies of apt).  After that I'm getting an error message when it tries to updates one of the dependencies.   

Hopefully if apt can be installed onto the minibook without breaking the default os and 3MX, it would make it easier to install small utilities like wvdial without the hassle of compiling. I can't see there being too many with programs like that but there would be with ones that have lots of dependencies like synaptic.

BTW, why does your post only show on topic summary when replying?

[wicknix]

It was flagged as spam. Probably because i posted so many links. 

Cheers.

[alsaf]

I've seen a few posts like were missing and was wondering why it was happening, now I know the reason why now!!

I think this is going to be harder than I thought and may not be possible as you say it will break too many things.  I was hoping to install dpkg and apt via xap-install and thenupdate the dependencies via apt but it doesn't like that it will be that easy.

So far, I've managed to download the necessary dependencies debian-archive-keyring, gunpg, makedev & zlib1g and from the logs I've managed to install gnupg. I had to install debianutils via xap-install to get rid of an error when updating apt. I am still getting an error but I've broken the ls command (I hope this is to do installing coreutils manually).

I've going to have to reinstall 3MX again and not install coreutils.

[Jay]

Yes the spam filter doesn't like posts with a lot of links in them, especially when they are grouped together without much text around.  Unfortunately the filter is needed though due to the (now occaisional) spam postings!
Cheers, Jay

[alsaf]

I've managed to get it working, sort of.

I'm figuring out how apt works as I go along so there is gaps in my knowledge of it. Apt is actually a front end for dpkg. The program dpkg installs the .deb files while apt-get (one of the programs that is part of the apt suite) downloads the .deb file and the its dependencies and calls dpkg to install them onto the system and run any supplied installation shell script files if further configuration is needed. The program dpkg uses a database to tell it which programs are installed on the system (/var/lib/dpkg/available & /var/lib/dpkg/status).

On an ordinary Debian system, you would download the dpkg.deb & apt.deb files, extract them, copy and paste them to the appropriate folder then run them and it should work. Unfortunately, as wicknix pointed out, the default OS and 3MX are not true Debian systems so I've had to manually create files here and there including copying and pasting the entries from my Ubuntu laptops dpkg database to the one of the minibook.

I've managed to get dpkg to install a .deb file and apt-get downloads deb files from the repository and attempts to install them. There are  few  dependencies for apt that needs to be installed.  So for it has come up with an error message when trying to install readline-common concerning missing files. I think these will need to be added manually. It is a case of repeating until all dependencies are installed. Once this and done and a separate program like flac can be installed then I will be satisfied it is working.

I was hoping  an easy how-to could be written to detailing steps to get apt working on 3MX but as can be seen on the blog page, it involves quite a number of steps. Hopefully once I get it working, I can tidy the howto up to make it a bit more clearer (if it can be!!!)

[Unhban]

apt-get  would be a killer application to get going fully, alsaf. I use it on Ubuntu when I get into trouble, and it does sort things out nicely! Just to bore the pants off everyone here's the commands that can be used after  apt-get  and what they do:

   dist-upgrade - Distribution upgrade
   clean - Erase downloaded archive files
   autoclean - Erase old downloaded archive files
   check - Verify that there are no broken dependencies
   update - Retrieve new lists of packages
   upgrade - Perform an upgrade
   install - Install new packages
   remove - Remove packages
   autoremove - Remove automatically all unused packages
   purge - Remove packages and config files
   source - Download source archives
   build-dep - Configure build-dependencies for source packages
   dselect-upgrade - Follow dselect selections

I'm not saying that all would be able to work fully with the present distro/s but if the first eight or nine worked I'd be happy!

Unh.

 

[alsaf]

I've managed at install the dependencies. I also managed to install flac via apt. I didn't test it it properly as I had then tried to install synaptic and it broke X11.  I'm in the process of re-installing 3MX and will try flac again to fully test it.

If anybody wants to try, the instructions are in my blog at original post.

Edit: I've got 3MX reinstalled and downloaded flac. I encoded a file and tried the flac file on my laptop (the audio player doesn't seem to recogonise flac format). The file played so I can say that the downloaded program works.

I've downloaded python 2.4 and will test it tomorrow.

[wicknix]

Cool to see you got bits of it working. However before you try python be advised that its already installed in rc3.1. (as is perl, ruby and tcl/tk). Also dpkg is installed already also. So thats one more thing you don't have to mess with.

Cheers.

[alsaf]

wicknix, the version of dpkg supplied in 3MX does not work with my howto. It has to be installed manually.

I've managed to tidy the how-to up a bit but it would be better if  a .patch file was created where the files required could be installed. When I get the time, I'll figure out how to do this.  I have 'fudged' 3MX to get apt working  so it may mean that it won't install all programs correctly.  It also has the potential to break 3MX and the default os. For these reasons, at the present moment, it has limited use. In the meantime, if anybody manages to get apt installed from the how-to, the following command displays the package name of program to be installed via apt-get

apt-cache search <search string>

ie

apt-cache search mp3

This will display all packages that have mp3 in name and/or description.

Here is a quick tutorial which I googled:

http://newbiedoc.sourceforge.net/tutorials/apt-get-intro/info.html.en

[Unhban]

WoW! Just read your blog (I recommend anyone interested in this to have a gander - the URL's in the first post) and you've done an awful lot on this. Looking forward to having a go! But looks like I'm going to have to set an afternoon aside! 

Unh.

[alsaf]

Lol Unhban.

I've not produced anything of value apart from getting E220 usb sticks and apt to work.

I've manged to create a simple Bash script file to install the files and put that and the required files into a tar archive.

Instructions are as follows:

* Download install-apt-files.tar from   http://www.filefactory.com/f/f4ae37a42ab0401b/

* Where install-apt-files.tar is located on minibook, enter the following commands in terminal:

Code: [Select]

tar -xf install-apt-files.tar
cd temp-files
./install-apt
The Bash script will install the required files onto the minibook and if everything works okay, will attempt to update apt-get. If this is successful you should be able to install files by

Code: [Select]

apt-get install package-name
If for any reason, there is errors, run the following command to download the packages lists:

Code: [Select]

apt-get update
And to install the debian-archive-keyring package and apt dependencies:

Code: [Select]

apt-get install debian-archive-keyring
WARNING: Please backup any personal files as installing programs via apt-get may break the os. The only way to fix this is to reinstall 3MX which will result in loss of data.

[Unhban]

Cheers for all this, alsaf! My idea for it, as an experiment, is to use apt-get to get the LLL right down to a base level and then build it up with just the apps. on it I need for my own use, using light-weight apps. that again I'll try individually experimently. Perhaps I'm going about this the wrong way really, but it's the way I'd like to try it.

No doubt Wicknix has gone through this (painful?) process already in a big way, but I'd like to have a go too! 

Unh.