More Synaptic confusion... :-(

  • johne53
Posted: Sat, 01/05/2008 - 08:46
Currently I'm running 64studio on both my laptop and desktop PCs. The laptop was installed directly from Version 2. The desktop system was installed from Version 1 and later upgraded to 2. When I launch Synaptic, both systems tell me they're running version 0.57.8 but if I go to Settings->Repositories the 2 dialogs look completely different. The laptop system shows me a Property Sheet dialog with 3 x Property Pages, while the desktop system just has a plain dialog with all the controls on one page. Furthermore, the desktop system keeps throwing up errors whenever I use Synaptic to install anything - and it doesn't offer the same options as my laptop system. For example, the laptop system offers me 'dev' versions of most available libraries whereas the other system doesn't. The laptop system has an additional repository - 'http://apt.tt-solutions.com/debian/ etch' (note the space before 'etch') but although I've tried adding that repository to my desktop machine, it never shows up in the repository list. In fact, I can't seem to get anything to show in the repository list, apart from the original repositories that came as standard. Two questions.... 1) Can I upgrade (or downgrade) Synaptic itself so that I get the working version on both machines? 2) If not, can I ditch Synaptic and install one of the more reliable package managers? Yast or CNR would be my favourites.
‹ cannot achieve system upgrade with synaptic repositories ›

Geezer?

  • picothinker
  • 08/22/07
  • Thu, 01/31/2008 - 14:42
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Hey Quentin, how did you know I had old hands? j/k. I found that the more time I spend Googling and breaking things, the more I learn. As with most things in life, I find that the more I learn, the more I realize how much I do not know. I just have to find the balance between learning, and spending all of my time fixing broken things.

Package Managers

  • picothinker
  • 08/22/07
  • Thu, 01/31/2008 - 03:40
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We love'em and we hate'em! While they are supposed to just be a front-end for apt and dpkg (in Debian's case), there is a very real risk at using every apt command that is possible. Depending on how fast all the various packages change, an 'apt-get dist-upgrade' can destroy a system. It's best all around to follow the upgrade path suggested by the maintainers. Good deal on the school switchover, I am a huge fan of an educational version of the Linux Terminal Server Project, at http://k12ltsp.org/contents.html Every school can come up with plenty of PC junkers to be GUI terminals. Yank the hard drives for power savings, and with no local storage, they all boot over the network. Put one beefy PC in for a server and it's much easier to manage. There is a very active mailing list as well, and the developers are very accessible.

package managers

  • porisija
  • 09/29/07
  • Wed, 01/30/2008 - 20:43
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Adding yet another package management system/software is in my opinion .."not too good an idea". It seems like your original problem was related to the non-existent software repository. I have used Yast and some other package managers, but apt-get is by far the most versatile and reliable of them all - provided it is not broken by esoteric software repositories. Perhaps your next step would be ..drums rolling.. ..configuring from source... Besides, click'n'run is (was?) based on apt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linspire But still, it's your system and Linux is definitely about choice! BTW, my wife is a teacher - we live in Finland - and she just told me that apparently her school is to make a switch from Win2000-XP systems to Linux next autumn - good riddens,MS. Vista has been the best promoter for Linux..

Package Managers

  • picothinker
  • 08/22/07
  • Wed, 01/30/2008 - 14:33
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I'm not familiar with CNR, but a after a quick google, it sounds like http://klik.atekon.de/ While auto-install apps like this are especially nice on a LiveCD, it could be riskier on a specialized distro like 64studio. We are all using specially tweaked kernels, and specific repositories of software. The auto-install programs have to use a more generic "everything", and you may stand a higher risk of borking things. It looks like http://yast4debian.alioth.debian.org/ is dead. That said, there is a nice alternative to Synaptic that I use on Debian Sid called Kpackage. It will read your current repository list and keep using them. Since default 64studio uses Gnome, one downside could be that it will need to install some KDE libs. As long as you are not 99% full on HD space, adding KDE libs shouldn't hurt a thing. There's (normally) nothing wrong at all with Synaptic, Kpackage is just another way of doing the same thing.

Geezer?

  • Quentin Harley
  • 05/24/07
  • Wed, 01/30/2008 - 14:46
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It's so nice to have an old hand in the linux business on board! While you can find out just about everything by just googling right, and reading a lot, there is no real substitute to "I have done it this way before" Cheers!

Some success

  • johne53
  • 10/07/07
  • Sat, 01/05/2008 - 16:19
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[Quote]" the laptop system offers me 'dev' versions of most available libraries whereas the other system doesn't. The laptop system has an additional repository - 'http://apt.tt-solutions.com/debian/ etch' (note the space before 'etch') but although I've tried adding that repository to my desktop machine, it never shows up in the repository list. " Well, I eventually realised that 'etch' is in fact the distribution field, not part of the URL. I ended up removing all my repositories and typing them in from scratch - and whoopee! I am now able to download 'dev' versions for my libraries. I'm still getting errors about something called fwcutter (every time I try to install a package using Synaptic) and I still don't understand why two (supposedly) identical versions of the same program should look physically different...???? I'd still prefer to use Yast or (best of all) CNR. Does anyone know if CNR is available yet for Debian?