Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?#
On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 14:24:25 -0800, Joe Rhett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > The point I was making is that most of us have better things to do > > > than search more than 5 pages of google hits. If the 'right > > > places' to get Debian applications were listed on the debian > > > homepages, this wouldn't be necessary. (more on this below) > > > > All of the "right" places already ARE listed on the Debian homepage. > > Sites like apt-get.org list all UNOFFICIAL packages which may very > > well kill your entire system or worse. Hence, they are intentionally > > NOT listed on debian.org. > > Okay, so the real answer does come down to: Debian DOES NOT have a > framework for application management on production systems. You're > flying by the seat of your pants, just like every other Linux distro. ..yup. And now you have your great chance to earn fame and money for writing it. ;-) -- ..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;-) ...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry... Scenarios always come in sets of three: best case, worst case, and just in case. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?#
> > The point I was making is that most of us have better things to do than > > search more than 5 pages of google hits. If the 'right places' to get > > Debian applications were listed on the debian homepages, this wouldn't be > > necessary. (more on this below) > > All of the "right" places already ARE listed on the Debian homepage. > Sites like apt-get.org list all UNOFFICIAL packages which may very well > kill your entire system or worse. Hence, they are intentionally NOT > listed on debian.org. Okay, so the real answer does come down to: Debian DOES NOT have a framework for application management on production systems. You're flying by the seat of your pants, just like every other Linux distro. -- Joe Rhett Chief Geek [EMAIL PROTECTED] Isite Services, Inc. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?#
Since this post has no technical merits, I separated it out. > > I've been using Linux since 0.7x kernels, so you can skip the patronizing. > > Last time I checked, some of my patches were still in the driver sources > > for various adapters. > Though I must say I'm extremely curious how you managed to use a 0.7x > kernel that never existed. The last release of the kernel after 0.12 was > 0.95 after all. I may have been swapping Slackware versions with kernel versions in my brain, but unless my memory has failed me you're wrong. 0.95 was one of the first stable (in practice) kernels in a fairly long time, and I remember some really unstable and unworkable kernels before it -- but I'm fairly certain that .95 was not a leap version. And god, this is going back what, 11 years now? So forgive me where my memory fails. Naturally, at the time we were all hacking stuff directly and rebuilding kernels to test drivers, so 'stable' as such didn't exist. I was doing most of the grunt work to get SMC network adapter cards functional and tested, as well as bitching about how lousy the NFS client was. -- Joe Rhett Chief Geek [EMAIL PROTECTED] Isite Services, Inc. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?#
On Fri, 2003-11-14 at 12:14, Joe Rhett wrote: > > So much for the topic at hand... in general: fear not. > > It's part of the Linux learning process that one learns where to pick up > > information. man, info, /usr/share/doc/, www... google is your friend, > > but google is not the be-all and end-all of everything. > > Especially if you what you're looking for can't easily be phrased as a > > search term, or scores far too many hits. > > I've been using Linux since 0.7x kernels, so you can skip the patronizing. > Last time I checked, some of my patches were still in the driver sources > for various adapters. > > The point I was making is that most of us have better things to do than > search more than 5 pages of google hits. If the 'right places' to get > Debian applications were listed on the debian homepages, this wouldn't be > necessary. (more on this below) All of the "right" places already ARE listed on the Debian homepage. Sites like apt-get.org list all UNOFFICIAL packages which may very well kill your entire system or worse. Hence, they are intentionally NOT listed on debian.org. Also, I don't believe Christian was trying to be patronizing. He may have been incorrect in assuming that if you didn't know that much about Debian that you also didn't know that much about Linux, but the advice he gave was good none the less. Though I must say I'm extremely curious how you managed to use a 0.7x kernel that never existed. The last release of the kernel after 0.12 was 0.95 after all. -- Alex Malinovich Support Free Software, delete your Windows partition TODAY! Encrypted mail preferred. You can get my public key from any of the pgp.net keyservers. Key ID: A6D24837 signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?#
> So much for the topic at hand... in general: fear not. > It's part of the Linux learning process that one learns where to pick up > information. man, info, /usr/share/doc/, www... google is your friend, > but google is not the be-all and end-all of everything. > Especially if you what you're looking for can't easily be phrased as a > search term, or scores far too many hits. I've been using Linux since 0.7x kernels, so you can skip the patronizing. Last time I checked, some of my patches were still in the driver sources for various adapters. The point I was making is that most of us have better things to do than search more than 5 pages of google hits. If the 'right places' to get Debian applications were listed on the debian homepages, this wouldn't be necessary. (more on this below) > > > Wrong: > > http://source.backports.org/debian/dists/woody/mozilla/binary-i386/ > > > has mozilla 1.5. > > > > How is one to find this? I didn't find a link to that site anywhere > > > www.apt-get.org -- I wish I'd found out about that site a lot sooner > that I actually did. Your bookmarks ain't complete without it. I _WAS_ searching on apt-get.org and that's where I found that 1.4b4 was the latest one showing. The only firebird showing at the time was .5 .. I know this isn't your fault, but this is starting to become silly. I like Linux, but I don't install it in production environments because I prefer to get work done, rather than keep spinning in circles with stuff. Many people have tried to tell me how great the Debian package management stuff is, but I really ain't seeing it. Everything is still hack-it-yerself and live your life through Google. -- Joe Rhett Chief Geek [EMAIL PROTECTED] Isite Services, Inc. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?#
On Fri, 2003-11-14 at 03:56, Joe Rhett wrote: > > Use a real package manager (not apt-get) which shows you new packages. > > The really funny thing about this whole topic is that we've now come full > circle. Read the subject line. Well, apt-get simply is no package manager. At least not in the common sense. apt-get install is a great thing if you already know what you want, but a package manager provides a little more, UI-wise. Browsable package lists, for example. I'm quite fond of aptitude, give that one a try. Can be used like apt-get, but has also an interactive mode (ie, browser). Some say synaptic is even better, but it's an X application I've never really tried. So much for the topic at hand... in general: fear not. It's part of the Linux learning process that one learns where to pick up information. man, info, /usr/share/doc/, www... google is your friend, but google is not the be-all and end-all of everything. Especially if you what you're looking for can't easily be phrased as a search term, or scores far too many hits. Keep in mind that many applications have their own mailing lists. And while you probably don't want to subscribe to all of them, you might get better results when searching their arcives directly than via google. > > Wrong: > http://source.backports.org/debian/dists/woody/mozilla/binary-i386/ > > has mozilla 1.5. > > How is one to find this? I didn't find a link to that site anywhere > www.apt-get.org -- I wish I'd found out about that site a lot sooner that I actually did. Your bookmarks ain't complete without it. cu, Schnobs -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?#
> > > Kernel updates go in pretty quickly, as a rule. wireless-tools is up to > > > date in testing, and linux-wlan-ng is only a fraction behind unstable. > > > > Why isn't it showing me these? > > Kernel package names change, therefore package management tools don't > upgrade them automatically, which is probably a good thing for kernels. > Use a real package manager (not apt-get) which shows you new packages. The really funny thing about this whole topic is that we've now come full circle. Read the subject line. I am asking what package manager I should use, because apt-get doesn't seem to handle it well. You are telling me to use a different package manager. I had that answer before I started this thread. Which one? -- Joe Rhett Chief Geek [EMAIL PROTECTED] Isite Services, Inc. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?
> Please, stop complaining, and do your research Actually, your comments here are demonstrating just how inadequate the apt-get documentation is. Because I read through it a dozen times -- and was already making notes to suggest cleaning it up -- and I never saw anything about the 'policy' command you're using here. So yes, I needed more information. But the public documentation didn't have anything about these commands, or how to use them appropriately. > if you make an > $ apt-get update > $ apt-get upgrade > > (or dist-upgrade) it will tell you "XXX packages have been held back." > These packages have new versions, but for some reason or another (maybe > dependencies problems) can not be upgraded without manual intervention. And there's no way to know what they are or why they were held back, that I can determine. > Most backport sites offer the possibility to add a line to your > sources.list, so after you "apt-get update" their information is in the > apt database, and dependencies are properly handled. > > For an excellent browser, try galen 1.2 (e.g. from > http://www.fs.tum.de/~bunk/packages/woody/bunk-1.html ) Galeon does not work. Again, if I want a browser that simply doesn't display whole paragraphs of CSS text, I could use old Mozilla. > > Oh, and no -- there is no modern Mozilla backports. The most modern > > backport is 1.4b4. That's nearly 9 months old. > > Wrong: http://source.backports.org/debian/dists/woody/mozilla/binary-i386/ > has mozilla 1.5. How is one to find this? I didn't find a link to that site anywhere on the debian main sites, nor from google searches. I would love to do my research, if it was possible without being part of the 'in crowd' ;-) > Aside, mozilla 1.5 was released some 2-3 weeks ago, you > need to leave some time for the people to do the packaging, right? Mozilla 1.4 was released what, 6 months ago? Still no version of 1.4 other than a pre-release beta that I could find in any backport site. > Your are right for Mozilla, but ... > > $ apt-cache policy konqueror > konqueror: > Installed: (none) > Candidate: 4:2.2.2-14.7 > I don't think konqueror 3.1.3 is 2 years old ..., and mozilla-firebird > is in testing (see above). But Konquerer doesn't handle perfectly valid HTML, and has decided that it would rather not try to fix those bugs, but instead wait for the world to come around to its point of view. That's useless in a production environment. -- Joe Rhett Chief Geek [EMAIL PROTECTED] Isite Services, Inc. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?
On Thu, Nov 06, 2003 at 11:19:47AM -0800, Joe Rhett wrote: > Colin Watson wrote: > > On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 04:41:50PM -0600, DePriest, Jason R. wrote: > > > Try adding this line to your /etc/apt/apt.conf file and see if you get > > > better results with your 'apt-get update': > > > APT::Default-Release "testing"; > > > > That's unnecessary if you only have one release listed in > > /etc/apt/sources.list (which is the configuration I'd strongly > > recommend) and may just introduce confusion in that case. > > Although I totally understand your logic, the idea I am hoping can work is > to run 'stable' by default, and upgrade to 'testing' versions of packages > only as necessary to fulfill a given need. While it's a nice idea, it won't actually work as you want, because packages in testing almost always depend on testing's libc6. Once you've upgraded to that, there's really very little point in trying to run stable for everything else, because you've already upgraded one of the parts of the system most likely to introduce instability. Also, other packages, particularly those related to interpreters like perl and python, frequently require the upgrade of surprisingly large swathes of your system. This is why I recommend against trying to mix stable and testing. Cheers, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?#
On Thu, Nov 06, 2003 at 11:53:12AM -0800, Joe Rhett wrote: > Colin Watson wrote: > > Ah, that would explain your confusion. 'apt-get upgrade' isn't what you > > want, since as documented in the apt-get(8) man page it will not install > > new packages. In particular, if you attempt to use 'apt-get upgrade' to > > upgrade from stable to testing, it will refuse to upgrade libc6 because > > of that package's new dependency on libdb1-compat, and therefore > > virtually nothing else will be upgraded because it almost all depends on > > the new libc6. > > Actually, it does attempt that when I prefer 'unstable' .. and it fails. > I had to manually back that stuff out. Perhaps you could actually show us what's happening when you try to upgrade to testing, i.e. a complete transcript of what you're doing? Guesswork isn't really so much fun. > > Don't use 'apt-get upgrade' to upgrade from one version of the > > distribution to the next. That said, it should have told you that some > > big number of packages were being held back. > > Nope. "No updates are available" or whatever. "Or whatever"? Again, exact transcripts please, including /etc/apt/sources.list. > > > Updates to the wireless drivers to improve device support would be > > > useful. > > > > Kernel updates go in pretty quickly, as a rule. wireless-tools is up to > > date in testing, and linux-wlan-ng is only a fraction behind unstable. > > Why isn't it showing me these? Kernel package names change, therefore package management tools don't upgrade them automatically, which is probably a good thing for kernels. Use a real package manager (not apt-get) which shows you new packages. > > > Stuff that has been safe and stable within Sid for over a year now > > > (according to the package pages) still isn't appearing in testing. > > > > Examples, please? I'd be happy to look at them and see what I can do; I > > can certainly explain what problems are involved. > > Perhaps related to above? Am I doing something wrong that I'm not seeing > this stuff? As I said, I need examples and transcripts. Cheers, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?
On Thu, Nov 06, 2003 at 11:46:30AM -0800, Joe Rhett wrote: > > HOWEVER, both of these commands are starting from the goal of upgrading > > to newer versions of packages you _already_ have installed. It gives > > you no idea what _else_ might be included in sarge. > > That's exactly what I want. > > Can you clarify the above -- is there a way to get a list of what you have > that has new versions but don't meet dependancies? I'm not looking for > products that aren't installed, I'm just looking for upgrades for things > which are installing. Testing is showing me _NOTHING_ of any significance. > Only when I prefer unstable do I see upgrades, then it wants a break the > whole world shift :-( What I would do is this: Comment out all the "stable" or "woody" sources in sources.list (you could just as easily delete them, but I like keeping stuff) Add all relevant sarge sources apt-get update apt-get -s dist-upgrade This will do a 'simulate' run of the dist-upgrade. Don't bother with 'upgrade' at all. It doesn't have enough freedom to really get anywhere (between branches, lots of packages end up with different dependencies or some library gets renamed or whatever, and 'upgrade' won't install new packages to meet the new dependencies, so nothing happens). If you like what you see, run it again without the -s > > > Perhaps my product selections are biased: I really could care less about > > > the latest and greatest desktop. They are pretty. But a browser that > > > actually works is required to do my job, for example. > > > > Fist off, you've already had the suggestion offered of using a backport > > for this. Before you get too carried away with complaining that the > > entire Debian process is useless, why don't you try the solution that > > works for so many people. > > Apt-get.org is your friend. > > The backports DO NOT fit into the debian framework. I can't use app-get to > manage their dependancies. (unless there is some way to do this that isn't > documented on the site) Well, what I do personally is a little clunky but seems to do the job: When I find a backport I want, I add its deb line to my sources.list, then do an apt-get update, then an apt-get install of the package. I then immediately go back to my sources.list, comment out the line, and apt-get update again. This way, when I'm installing the backport, apt can draw on both the whole official woody tree, plus the site where I'm getting the backport (to meet any dependencies). BUT, when I later fire up aptitude to install something or check for new security fixes, I don't end up with "newer" unofficial versions of god-knows-what getting installed from all those backport sources. There may well be some elegant way of doing this with apt's "pinning" feature, but I don't understand pinning and it scares me, so I stick with this method for now. > > Oh, and on browsers: I've personally been extremely happy with Firebird > > (from the Mozilla folks). It isn't packaged as a deb anywhere I've > > seen, but just unpacking the tarball in /usr/local/bin and running it > > has worked fine for me. > > I didn't say "useless", but I did say (and it does appear) that having the > unified application/dependancy management system doesn't help here. I > might as well run another Linux or Solarix x86, because apt-get isn't doing > anything for me here. A given downloaded package (like firebird) might > require something, and I'll have to manage all those dependancies myself. It's true. In the particular case of installing something that's not packaged as a deb file, apt is not doing anything for you. In firebird's case, it does not seem to depend on anything, and the simple expedient of untarring it has given me the only browser I need. > Oh, and no -- there is no modern Mozilla backports. The most modern > backport is 1.4b4. That's nearly 9 months old. Bummer. > > Aren't drivers generally part of the kernel, or kernel modules? > > Which in turn are pretty much independant of which branch you're > > running. You can compile whatever version kernel you want under > > woody/sarge/sid... and make-kpkg makes it almost shockingly easy. > > Compile and kernel don't belong in the vocabulary of any operation which > needs stable systems. In that case, I'm fairly sure you can just download and dpkg -i a pre-built kernel from any of the three branches. Don't quote me on this, as I've never actually tried it, but I _think_ that kernel-image packages don't tend to have dependency issues... so you could install a kernel-image-2.4.22 or whatever from sid on a woody or sarge system if you like. > > If you want a 'stable' system with later versions of just a few things, > > you can use backports or failing that, compile your own. > > Why aren't these backports being introduced into testing and then stable? > Why force people to deliberately go outside the package framework? Um. They're not introduced into stable because nothing is. Once
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?#
> Ah, that would explain your confusion. 'apt-get upgrade' isn't what you > want, since as documented in the apt-get(8) man page it will not install > new packages. In particular, if you attempt to use 'apt-get upgrade' to > upgrade from stable to testing, it will refuse to upgrade libc6 because > of that package's new dependency on libdb1-compat, and therefore > virtually nothing else will be upgraded because it almost all depends on > the new libc6. Actually, it does attempt that when I prefer 'unstable' .. and it fails. I had to manually back that stuff out. > Don't use 'apt-get upgrade' to upgrade from one version of the > distribution to the next. That said, it should have told you that some > big number of packages were being held back. Nope. "No updates are available" or whatever. > > Perhaps my product selections are biased: I really could care less about > > the latest and greatest desktop. They are pretty. But a browser that > > actually works is required to do my job, for example. > > Testing has a perfectly usable version of mozilla-firebird, which I'd > argue is a much better browser than plain mozilla. I might personally agree, but there are no production users of firebird. So we have to keep it around in a few places at least. > > Updates to the wireless drivers to improve device support would be > > useful. > > Kernel updates go in pretty quickly, as a rule. wireless-tools is up to > date in testing, and linux-wlan-ng is only a fraction behind unstable. Why isn't it showing me these? > > Stuff that has been safe and stable within Sid for over a year now > > (according to the package pages) still isn't appearing in testing. > > Examples, please? I'd be happy to look at them and see what I can do; I > can certainly explain what problems are involved. Perhaps related to above? Am I doing something wrong that I'm not seeing this stuff? > > In short, it appears that if one actually wants to use Debian as a > > desktop, one has no choice but to throw the debian guidelines out the > > window and run with unstable. > > I actually use Debian testing as a desktop, eight hours a day, five days > a week. It works great. > > > This means you lose commonality with any server 'stable' systems you > > might need to run. > > As far as commonality goes (although I don't quite understand what you > mean here), you should regard testing as closer to unstable in terms of > versions of software than to stable, because for the most part it is, > particularly in recent months. The general idea being that you could have an internal policy that no 'unstable' things are deployed on servers. I wouldn't mind running unstable on personal desktops, but if they diverge so far that there is a loss of commonality... -- Joe Rhett Chief Geek [EMAIL PROTECTED] Isite Services, Inc. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?
> You seem to have a fairly big misconception here: Adding testing to the > sources.list and doing an apt-get update and upgrade will _not_ reflect > how many packages are in testing. Not by any stretch. > First off, apt-get upgrade and apt-get dist-upgrade are very different: > upgrade will install new versions of existing packages, but only as > long as it doesn't have to add/remove other packages to satisfy > depencencies. > dist-upgrade will install or remove other things as needed to meet > deps. > > HOWEVER, both of these commands are starting from the goal of upgrading > to newer versions of packages you _already_ have installed. It gives > you no idea what _else_ might be included in sarge. That's exactly what I want. Can you clarify the above -- is there a way to get a list of what you have that has new versions but don't meet dependancies? I'm not looking for products that aren't installed, I'm just looking for upgrades for things which are installing. Testing is showing me _NOTHING_ of any significance. Only when I prefer unstable do I see upgrades, then it wants a break the whole world shift :-( > > Perhaps my product selections are biased: I really could care less about > > the latest and greatest desktop. They are pretty. But a browser that > > actually works is required to do my job, for example. > > Fist off, you've already had the suggestion offered of using a backport > for this. Before you get too carried away with complaining that the > entire Debian process is useless, why don't you try the solution that > works for so many people. > Apt-get.org is your friend. The backports DO NOT fit into the debian framework. I can't use app-get to manage their dependancies. (unless there is some way to do this that isn't documented on the site) > Oh, and on browsers: I've personally been extremely happy with Firebird > (from the Mozilla folks). It isn't packaged as a deb anywhere I've > seen, but just unpacking the tarball in /usr/local/bin and running it > has worked fine for me. I didn't say "useless", but I did say (and it does appear) that having the unified application/dependancy management system doesn't help here. I might as well run another Linux or Solarix x86, because apt-get isn't doing anything for me here. A given downloaded package (like firebird) might require something, and I'll have to manage all those dependancies myself. Oh, and no -- there is no modern Mozilla backports. The most modern backport is 1.4b4. That's nearly 9 months old. > > Updates to the > > wireless drivers to improve device support would be useful. Stuff that has > > been safe and stable within Sid for over a year now (according to the > > package pages) still isn't appearing in testing. > > Aren't drivers generally part of the kernel, or kernel modules? > Which in turn are pretty much independant of which branch you're > running. You can compile whatever version kernel you want under > woody/sarge/sid... and make-kpkg makes it almost shockingly easy. Compile and kernel don't belong in the vocabulary of any operation which needs stable systems. > If you want a 'stable' system with later versions of just a few things, > you can use backports or failing that, compile your own. Why aren't these backports being introduced into testing and then stable? Why force people to deliberately go outside the package framework? > If you want an in-between system, run testing with the caveat that just > before a release, there's not a whole lot of new stuff going into > testing. (Seem counter-intuitive? I believe the reason is that just > before a release, the emphasis is on debugging the hell out of all the > stuff that's already in testing so that it meets Debian's (very high) > standards to qualify for the name 'stable' in time for release.) Again, I'm still not seeing anything in testing. Neither the Mozilla nor the Konqueror or any other browser that I can see in testing has been updated in the last 2 years, and all of them contain unworkable flaws that prevent their use in any production environment. > If you want more newer stuff than that, go ahead and run unstable. It > seems to only get significantly broken very rarely, but things do go > wrong sometimes when you run lots of really new versions of stuff. We have no desire to run unstable, but if that's the only way to have modern, unbroken versions of business applications then we'd have no choice, now would we? -- Joe Rhett Chief Geek [EMAIL PROTECTED] Isite Services, Inc. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?
> > Try adding this line to your /etc/apt/apt.conf file and see if you get > > better results with your 'apt-get update': > > APT::Default-Release "testing"; > > That's unnecessary if you only have one release listed in > /etc/apt/sources.list (which is the configuration I'd strongly > recommend) and may just introduce confusion in that case. Although I totally understand your logic, the idea I am hoping can work is to run 'stable' by default, and upgrade to 'testing' versions of packages only as necessary to fulfill a given need. -- Joe Rhett Chief Geek [EMAIL PROTECTED] Isite Services, Inc. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?#
On Wed, 5 Nov 2003 00:47:54 + Colin Watson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I actually use Debian testing as a desktop, eight hours a day, five days > a week. It works great. Moi aussi. But there are some kde-related packages that just won't install - e.g. quanta, which I wanted to have a look at. - Richard. -- Richard Kimber http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?
On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 04:41:50PM -0600, DePriest, Jason R. wrote: > From: Joe Rhett [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Let me rephrase. Either the US mirrors are screwed, or there is > > less than a dozen packages in testing. Because adding testing to > > the sources list and doing an apt-get update (which was successful) > > and then trying to upgrade packages gets me next to nothing. I > > found hundreds more packages in 'security' than I did in testing, > > which actually baffles me since they should have much of the same > > content according to the debian guidelines. > > Try adding this line to your /etc/apt/apt.conf file and see if you get > better results with your 'apt-get update': > APT::Default-Release "testing"; That's unnecessary if you only have one release listed in /etc/apt/sources.list (which is the configuration I'd strongly recommend) and may just introduce confusion in that case. Cheers, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?#
On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 01:51:45PM -0800, Joe Rhett wrote: > Colin Watson wrote: > > Joe Rhett wrote: > > > If testing is what is supposed to be the next release, then it seems > > > pointless to even bother. "Testing" still has Mozilla 1.0. That's what, > > > 2 years old? > > > > We're working on it, but the mozilla package is buggy, which makes it > > difficult to make the testing management scripts happy with it. > > So buggy that it runs 2 years behind? If that weren't the case then it wouldn't be two years behind. This is a somewhat circular argument, but nevertheless true. (Sometimes we've been in the position where an upgrade to mozilla would break another package.) The release team are more than aware that this is not a tenable situation, though. It'll have to be resolved somehow before releasing sarge. > > > > Well, that's basically exactly how it works. There's quite a few extra > > > > details but that's the "meat and potatoes" of it so to speak. :) > > > > > > Then why is there really zero updates in testing? > > > > That's just rubbish, sorry. (I help manage testing; I watch what it's > > doing almost every day.) > > Let me rephrase. Either the US mirrors are screwed, or there is less than > a dozen packages in testing. Because adding testing to the sources list > and doing an apt-get update (which was successful) and then trying to > upgrade packages gets me next to nothing. I found hundreds more packages > in 'security' than I did in testing, which actually baffles me since they > should have much of the same content according to the debian guidelines. Ah, that would explain your confusion. 'apt-get upgrade' isn't what you want, since as documented in the apt-get(8) man page it will not install new packages. In particular, if you attempt to use 'apt-get upgrade' to upgrade from stable to testing, it will refuse to upgrade libc6 because of that package's new dependency on libdb1-compat, and therefore virtually nothing else will be upgraded because it almost all depends on the new libc6. Don't use 'apt-get upgrade' to upgrade from one version of the distribution to the next. That said, it should have told you that some big number of packages were being held back. > Perhaps my product selections are biased: I really could care less about > the latest and greatest desktop. They are pretty. But a browser that > actually works is required to do my job, for example. Testing has a perfectly usable version of mozilla-firebird, which I'd argue is a much better browser than plain mozilla. > Updates to the wireless drivers to improve device support would be > useful. Kernel updates go in pretty quickly, as a rule. wireless-tools is up to date in testing, and linux-wlan-ng is only a fraction behind unstable. > Stuff that has been safe and stable within Sid for over a year now > (according to the package pages) still isn't appearing in testing. Examples, please? I'd be happy to look at them and see what I can do; I can certainly explain what problems are involved. > In short, it appears that if one actually wants to use Debian as a > desktop, one has no choice but to throw the debian guidelines out the > window and run with unstable. I actually use Debian testing as a desktop, eight hours a day, five days a week. It works great. > This means you lose commonality with any server 'stable' systems you > might need to run. As far as commonality goes (although I don't quite understand what you mean here), you should regard testing as closer to unstable in terms of versions of software than to stable, because for the most part it is, particularly in recent months. Cheers, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?
On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 01:51:45PM -0800, Joe Rhett wrote: > > > If testing is what is supposed to be the next release, then it seems > > > pointless to even bother. "Testing" still has Mozilla 1.0. That's what, > > > 2 years old? > > > > We're working on it, but the mozilla package is buggy, which makes it > > difficult to make the testing management scripts happy with it. > > So buggy that it runs 2 years behind? > > > > > Well, that's basically exactly how it works. There's quite a few extra > > > > details but that's the "meat and potatoes" of it so to speak. :) > > > > > > Then why is there really zero updates in testing? > > > > That's just rubbish, sorry. (I help manage testing; I watch what it's > > doing almost every day.) > > Let me rephrase. Either the US mirrors are screwed, or there is less than > a dozen packages in testing. Because adding testing to the sources list > and doing an apt-get update (which was successful) and then trying to > upgrade packages gets me next to nothing. I found hundreds more packages > in 'security' than I did in testing, which actually baffles me since they > should have much of the same content according to the debian guidelines. You seem to have a fairly big misconception here: Adding testing to the sources.list and doing an apt-get update and upgrade will _not_ reflect how many packages are in testing. Not by any stretch. First off, apt-get upgrade and apt-get dist-upgrade are very different: upgrade will install new versions of existing packages, but only as long as it doesn't have to add/remove other packages to satisfy depencencies. dist-upgrade will install or remove other things as needed to meet deps. HOWEVER, both of these commands are starting from the goal of upgrading to newer versions of packages you _already_ have installed. It gives you no idea what _else_ might be included in sarge. > Perhaps my product selections are biased: I really could care less about > the latest and greatest desktop. They are pretty. But a browser that > actually works is required to do my job, for example. Fist off, you've already had the suggestion offered of using a backport for this. Before you get too carried away with complaining that the entire Debian process is useless, why don't you try the solution that works for so many people. Apt-get.org is your friend. Searching it for Mozilla tells me that Adrian Bunk (among others) is maintaining a backport. No, this is not an "official" part of Debian, but between Adrian's reputation and my own experiences, I'd say it might as well be. Oh, and on browsers: I've personally been extremely happy with Firebird (from the Mozilla folks). It isn't packaged as a deb anywhere I've seen, but just unpacking the tarball in /usr/local/bin and running it has worked fine for me. > Updates to the > wireless drivers to improve device support would be useful. Stuff that has > been safe and stable within Sid for over a year now (according to the > package pages) still isn't appearing in testing. Aren't drivers generally part of the kernel, or kernel modules? Which in turn are pretty much independant of which branch you're running. You can compile whatever version kernel you want under woody/sarge/sid... and make-kpkg makes it almost shockingly easy. > In short, it appears that if one actually wants to use Debian as a desktop, > one has no choice but to throw the debian guidelines out the window and run > with unstable. This means you lose commonality with any server > 'stable' systems you might need to run. Nonsense. This is a very popular way of doing things, but by no means an unavoidable necessity. If you want a 'stable' system with later versions of just a few things, you can use backports or failing that, compile your own. If you want an in-between system, run testing with the caveat that just before a release, there's not a whole lot of new stuff going into testing. (Seem counter-intuitive? I believe the reason is that just before a release, the emphasis is on debugging the hell out of all the stuff that's already in testing so that it meets Debian's (very high) standards to qualify for the name 'stable' in time for release.) If you want more newer stuff than that, go ahead and run unstable. It seems to only get significantly broken very rarely, but things do go wrong sometimes when you run lots of really new versions of stuff. Cheers! -- ,-. > -ScruLoose- | WARNING: Contains Language! < > Please do not | - Neil Gaiman< > reply off-list. | < `-' pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
RE: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?
> -Original Message- > From: Joe Rhett [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 3:52 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Alex Malinovich > Subject: Re: What's the best package manager for > single-package upgrades? > Let me rephrase. Either the US mirrors are screwed, or there > is less than > a dozen packages in testing. Because adding testing to the > sources list > and doing an apt-get update (which was successful) and then trying to > upgrade packages gets me next to nothing. I found hundreds > more packages > in 'security' than I did in testing, which actually baffles > me since they > should have much of the same content according to the debian > guidelines. > Try adding this line to your /etc/apt/apt.conf file and see if you get better results with your 'apt-get update': APT::Default-Release "testing"; I learned this trick from 'man 8 apt-get' -Jason -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?
> > If testing is what is supposed to be the next release, then it seems > > pointless to even bother. "Testing" still has Mozilla 1.0. That's what, > > 2 years old? > > We're working on it, but the mozilla package is buggy, which makes it > difficult to make the testing management scripts happy with it. So buggy that it runs 2 years behind? > > > Well, that's basically exactly how it works. There's quite a few extra > > > details but that's the "meat and potatoes" of it so to speak. :) > > > > Then why is there really zero updates in testing? > > That's just rubbish, sorry. (I help manage testing; I watch what it's > doing almost every day.) Let me rephrase. Either the US mirrors are screwed, or there is less than a dozen packages in testing. Because adding testing to the sources list and doing an apt-get update (which was successful) and then trying to upgrade packages gets me next to nothing. I found hundreds more packages in 'security' than I did in testing, which actually baffles me since they should have much of the same content according to the debian guidelines. Perhaps my product selections are biased: I really could care less about the latest and greatest desktop. They are pretty. But a browser that actually works is required to do my job, for example. Updates to the wireless drivers to improve device support would be useful. Stuff that has been safe and stable within Sid for over a year now (according to the package pages) still isn't appearing in testing. In short, it appears that if one actually wants to use Debian as a desktop, one has no choice but to throw the debian guidelines out the window and run with unstable. This means you lose commonality with any server 'stable' systems you might need to run. -- Joe Rhett Chief Geek [EMAIL PROTECTED] Isite Services, Inc. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?
On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 03:57:02PM +, Richard Kimber wrote: > On Tue, 4 Nov 2003 14:35:20 + > Colin Watson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > IRC channels are the best you're likely to do for running guidance. If > > there's really serious hose-your-system breakage then somebody usually > > posts to mailing lists about it; if it's just package conflicts and > > things, then, well, you should pay attention to what the package manager > > says it's going to remove and say no if it looks mad. > > OK. Thanks. > This may be a stupid question, but has consideration been given to having > a 'holding area' between testing and stable to which stuff gets moved only > when there are no breakages? That's what testing is supposed to be. It would be too hard to try to construct yet another stage, I believe. Cheers, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?
On Tue, 4 Nov 2003 14:35:20 + Colin Watson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > What would be really helpful would be if there was some easy-to-find > > running guidance on what testing users should do - like "don't do a > > dist-upgrade just yet" ... etc. Maybe there is such information - if > > so I'd like to know how to find it. > > IRC channels are the best you're likely to do for running guidance. If > there's really serious hose-your-system breakage then somebody usually > posts to mailing lists about it; if it's just package conflicts and > things, then, well, you should pay attention to what the package manager > says it's going to remove and say no if it looks mad. OK. Thanks. This may be a stupid question, but has consideration been given to having a 'holding area' between testing and stable to which stuff gets moved only when there are no breakages? - Richard. -- Richard Kimber http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?
On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 12:52:34PM +, Richard Kimber wrote: > On Tue, 4 Nov 2003 10:21:44 + > Colin Watson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > That's not true. KDE 3 went in just a few days ago (albeit somewhat > > broken for now) > > Indeed. > > What would be really helpful would be if there was some easy-to-find > running guidance on what testing users should do - like "don't do a > dist-upgrade just yet" ... etc. Maybe there is such information - if so > I'd like to know how to find it. IRC channels are the best you're likely to do for running guidance. If there's really serious hose-your-system breakage then somebody usually posts to mailing lists about it; if it's just package conflicts and things, then, well, you should pay attention to what the package manager says it's going to remove and say no if it looks mad. Cheers, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?
On Tue, 4 Nov 2003 10:21:44 + Colin Watson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > That's not true. KDE 3 went in just a few days ago (albeit somewhat > broken for now) Indeed. What would be really helpful would be if there was some easy-to-find running guidance on what testing users should do - like "don't do a dist-upgrade just yet" ... etc. Maybe there is such information - if so I'd like to know how to find it. - Richard. -- Richard Kimber http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?
On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 02:00:14AM -0800, Joe Rhett wrote: > On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 03:23:48AM -0600, Alex Malinovich wrote: > > Well, in my experience, testing is most useful immediately following a > > new stable release, and least useful immediately preceding a new stable > > release. If you were to have started using Sarge right after Woody came > > out, I think you would have been rather happy. But now that everyone's > > trying to get Sarge ready to ship out, there's not many current things > > going in. > > Isn't the point of testing that it should contain what will become stable? > If testing is what is supposed to be the next release, then it seems > pointless to even bother. "Testing" still has Mozilla 1.0. That's what, > 2 years old? We're working on it, but the mozilla package is buggy, which makes it difficult to make the testing management scripts happy with it. > Unless I misunderstand the structure, shouldn't "testing" have lots of > stuff in it just prior to a new release? There's almost zero updates in > testing .. That's not true. KDE 3 went in just a few days ago (albeit somewhat broken for now), for example. > > > In a perfect world, people would hammer things and then roll them into > > > testing once they had been in unstable long enough without bug reports. > > > This would allow us to keep high-uptime systems running the same kernels > > > and such as our test/burn/destroy/rebuild laptops ;-) > > > > Well, that's basically exactly how it works. There's quite a few extra > > details but that's the "meat and potatoes" of it so to speak. :) > > Then why is there really zero updates in testing? That's just rubbish, sorry. (I help manage testing; I watch what it's doing almost every day.) Cheers, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?
> On Tue, 2003-11-04 at 02:35, Joe Rhett wrote: > > I find it kindof sad that testing really doesn't appear to have any > > function any longer. One would like to run from testing and leave unstable > > for the well, unstable stuff. But I haven't really found much in testing, > > which means one must be stale, or bleed on the edge. Sux. On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 03:23:48AM -0600, Alex Malinovich wrote: > Well, in my experience, testing is most useful immediately following a > new stable release, and least useful immediately preceding a new stable > release. If you were to have started using Sarge right after Woody came > out, I think you would have been rather happy. But now that everyone's > trying to get Sarge ready to ship out, there's not many current things > going in. Isn't the point of testing that it should contain what will become stable? If testing is what is supposed to be the next release, then it seems pointless to even bother. "Testing" still has Mozilla 1.0. That's what, 2 years old? Unless I misunderstand the structure, shouldn't "testing" have lots of stuff in it just prior to a new release? There's almost zero updates in testing .. > Though Sid is definitely not the bleeding edge of stuff in Debian. Sid > is, generally speaking, quite stable. There's the occasional hiccup, but > I can count on one hand the number of major problems I've had with Sid > in the entire time I've been using Debian. (About 2 years now) > > If you really want bleeding edge, you add experimental to your > sources.list. That's where you get all the really fun stuff... :) Okay, so "testing" isn't. Unstable is really "testing" and experimental (not described in the debian documentation) is really unstable? > > In a perfect world, people would hammer things and then roll them into > > testing once they had been in unstable long enough without bug reports. > > This would allow us to keep high-uptime systems running the same kernels > > and such as our test/burn/destroy/rebuild laptops ;-) > > Well, that's basically exactly how it works. There's quite a few extra > details but that's the "meat and potatoes" of it so to speak. :) Then why is there really zero updates in testing? -- Joe Rhett Chief Geek [EMAIL PROTECTED] Isite Services, Inc. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?
On Tue, 2003-11-04 at 02:35, Joe Rhett wrote: --snip-- > 1. Set the unstable archives to a higher preference in /etc/apt/preferences > 2. "apt-get upgrade" to update the entire lot? > ... or am I missing a step? That's about it. Simple really. :) > I find it kindof sad that testing really doesn't appear to have any > function any longer. One would like to run from testing and leave unstable > for the well, unstable stuff. But I haven't really found much in testing, > which means one must be stale, or bleed on the edge. Sux. Well, in my experience, testing is most useful immediately following a new stable release, and least useful immediately preceding a new stable release. If you were to have started using Sarge right after Woody came out, I think you would have been rather happy. But now that everyone's trying to get Sarge ready to ship out, there's not many current things going in. Though Sid is definitely not the bleeding edge of stuff in Debian. Sid is, generally speaking, quite stable. There's the occasional hiccup, but I can count on one hand the number of major problems I've had with Sid in the entire time I've been using Debian. (About 2 years now) If you really want bleeding edge, you add experimental to your sources.list. That's where you get all the really fun stuff... :) > In a perfect world, people would hammer things and then roll them into > testing once they had been in unstable long enough without bug reports. > This would allow us to keep high-uptime systems running the same kernels > and such as our test/burn/destroy/rebuild laptops ;-) Well, that's basically exactly how it works. There's quite a few extra details but that's the "meat and potatoes" of it so to speak. :) -- Alex Malinovich Support Free Software, delete your Windows partition TODAY! Encrypted mail preferred. You can get my public key from any of the pgp.net keyservers. Key ID: A6D24837 signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?
> Joe wrote: > > So I am writing here in hopes I'm overlooking > > something. Please, tell me > > how one can update just one package and its > > dependancies, without doing a > > full-on conversion from Woody to unstable? If a > > single package forces one > > to upgrade completely to unstable branch, then the > > entire purpose of the > > trees appears to be a moot point. Simon offered: > If you want to upgrade just Mozilla in Woody rather > than the whole host of things that Sid suggests you're > going need to look at backports, take a look at > www.apt-get.org but beware that using a range of > backported products together can seriously mess your > system up... That's good to know. > If you think you might want to upgrade other packages > in the future - and why not, Woody is *old* and most > people happily run Sid on their desktops - you should > look at dist-upgrading to Sid Is that the process I was seeing before? 1. Set the unstable archives to a higher preference in /etc/apt/preferences 2. "apt-get upgrade" to update the entire lot? ... or am I missing a step? I find it kindof sad that testing really doesn't appear to have any function any longer. One would like to run from testing and leave unstable for the well, unstable stuff. But I haven't really found much in testing, which means one must be stale, or bleed on the edge. Sux. In a perfect world, people would hammer things and then roll them into testing once they had been in unstable long enough without bug reports. This would allow us to keep high-uptime systems running the same kernels and such as our test/burn/destroy/rebuild laptops ;-) -- Joe Rhett Chief Geek [EMAIL PROTECTED] Isite Services, Inc. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?
--- Joe Rhett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Okay, this is probably a bonehead user question but > I'm just getting used > to Debian. Not normally a bonehead :-( > > I would like/prefer to run 'stable'. Debian/Woody > installed on my laptop > perfectly fine. Wireless/WEP, IPsec, X all up and > running SWEET. > > Unfortunately, the stable browser is 'zilla 1.0 :-( > > I would like to run a modern Mozilla, without > updating the whole universe > if possible. I've done the documented steps for > accessing unstable > (testing doesn't have anything newer) and rerun > apt-get update and it sees > the packages just fine. But when I try to upgrade > mozilla it wants to > install 293 packages ... uh, no. > > The man page indicates that apt-get upgrade doesn't > handle single package > upgrades -- to use dselect. Well dselect gets way > way lost inside a tree I > can't find my way out of. I spent an hour trying to > make dselect happy, > and I'm still lost. > > So finally I just went to the package directly using > mozilla. It tells me > of the dependancies, but allows me to download > directly. But then kpackage > barfs because it wants all the dependancies. > > Am I really supposed to spend all night long > manually downloading all the > dependancies? Ugh. > > So I am writing here in hopes I'm overlooking > something. Please, tell me > how one can update just one package and its > dependancies, without doing a > full-on conversion from Woody to unstable? If a > single package forces one > to upgrade completely to unstable branch, then the > entire purpose of the > trees appears to be a moot point. > > Now -- skip the download and compile yourself. No > fun. And skip the > 'download the 'zilla net installer and use that' -- > because I already have. > But I want to know how to solve this problem and > stay within the Debian > framework. > Joe, If you want to upgrade just Mozilla in Woody rather than the whole host of things that Sid suggests you're going need to look at backports, take a look at www.apt-get.org but beware that using a range of backported products together can seriously mess your system up... If you think you might want to upgrade other packages in the future - and why not, Woody is *old* and most people happily run Sid on their desktops - you should look at dist-upgrading to Sid HTH. > -- > Joe Rhett > Chief Geek > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Isite Services, Inc. > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > = --- Simon Tod [EMAIL PROTECTED] Want to chat instantly with your online friends? Get the FREE Yahoo! Messenger http://mail.messenger.yahoo.co.uk -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
What's the best package manager for single-package upgrades?
Okay, this is probably a bonehead user question but I'm just getting used to Debian. Not normally a bonehead :-( I would like/prefer to run 'stable'. Debian/Woody installed on my laptop perfectly fine. Wireless/WEP, IPsec, X all up and running SWEET. Unfortunately, the stable browser is 'zilla 1.0 :-( I would like to run a modern Mozilla, without updating the whole universe if possible. I've done the documented steps for accessing unstable (testing doesn't have anything newer) and rerun apt-get update and it sees the packages just fine. But when I try to upgrade mozilla it wants to install 293 packages ... uh, no. The man page indicates that apt-get upgrade doesn't handle single package upgrades -- to use dselect. Well dselect gets way way lost inside a tree I can't find my way out of. I spent an hour trying to make dselect happy, and I'm still lost. So finally I just went to the package directly using mozilla. It tells me of the dependancies, but allows me to download directly. But then kpackage barfs because it wants all the dependancies. Am I really supposed to spend all night long manually downloading all the dependancies? Ugh. So I am writing here in hopes I'm overlooking something. Please, tell me how one can update just one package and its dependancies, without doing a full-on conversion from Woody to unstable? If a single package forces one to upgrade completely to unstable branch, then the entire purpose of the trees appears to be a moot point. Now -- skip the download and compile yourself. No fun. And skip the 'download the 'zilla net installer and use that' -- because I already have. But I want to know how to solve this problem and stay within the Debian framework. -- Joe Rhett Chief Geek [EMAIL PROTECTED] Isite Services, Inc. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
