*- On 4 Oct, Joe Block wrote about "Getting source deb files" > Hi. > > Where do I find the source deb files for packages in potato? I'd like to > install > postfix on a slink system, but it wants me to upgrade glibc which I'd rather > not > do. I'm sure that this is only because the postfix deb file was built on a > machine > with the new glibc, so I'd like to dl the deb and rebuild it for slink and > the old > libraries. > > I don't want to upgrade this machine to potato because I'm going to use it > for a > server and want a stable distribution. > > I could just download it and build it in /usr/local, but I'd prefer to keep > everything > possible under the control of dpkg. > > Thanks, > > jpb
Are you using apt? If not do! Then add the folling to /etc/apt/sources.list deb-src ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian potato main contrib non-free Then cd to some directory like /usr/local/src and issue apt-get update apt-get install dpkg-dev apt-get --compile source postfix This will grab the Package file from the Source distribution. Then install the dpkg-dev package which is needed to build debian packages. And finally it will download and _attempt_ to compile the postfix source under the current working directory. If it succeeds you will have a shiny new postfix deb in the current directory. If it fails look at the error messages. It usually fails on a missing header file or some such. Use the 'Search the Contents' search at the bottom of http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages.html to find out which package contains the missing files. Then 'apt-get install <package>' to install the missing files. You then need to restart the compile from within the source directory for postfix, cd into the postfix directory and then issue the command debian/rules binary and itterate until it completes successfully. You will see a message like the following on a successful run: dpkg-deb: building package `<package>' in `../<package>_<version>_<arch>.deb'. I have upgrade probably two dozen or more package this way on my slink box to potato versions. Have fun, -- Brian Servis ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mechanical Engineering | Never criticize anybody until you Purdue University | have walked a mile in their shoes, [EMAIL PROTECTED] | because by that time you will be a http://www.ecn.purdue.edu/~servis | mile away and have their shoes.