Apt-get / dpkg tutorial

**MickLinux** · 06-03-2005, 03:07 AM

Okay, I have a "beginner" "knoppix-installer" HDD install.

One of the suggestions was apt-get update. Well, I had tried that with devastating results, via dselect.

Essentially, it immediately wanted to eliminate all kinds of stuff like kdebase, upgrade other stuff, and so on. A lot of the upgrades were not able to be found, a lot of others stepped on the toes of preexisting packages and would not be installed.

So for the first case, I had to do without. For the second case, I had to deinstall the preexisting package, configure the broken selection, and then reinstall the preexisting package.

So far, so good.

But when I went to reboot the system, I found that all the autodetection was broken; it spent 5 minutes trying to hook up random modules and erroring out; and the mouse was permanently broken. My solution? To try to reinstall knoppix, which wanted to erase the HDD. With as much broken as there was, it was inordinately difficult for me to save our home directories -- I ended up just formatting over it. I didn't lose everything, because we keep a lot of stuff on the Windows side, as well.

But having reinstalled knoppix, I am now trying again to do a dselect get-update, fresh, to see better what happens.

Meanwhile, if others have suggestions -- including how to undo dselect requests for an update -- I'd be glad to hear of it.

And to those who are arguing how you learn, that's how *I* learn. Not by man, not by asking questions, but by blowing it up and then examining all the little pieces, and finally publishing and asking for opinions. The nuclear physicist method, if you will. Flame away, when you get done rofling.

**sakiZ** · 06-22-2005, 09:45 PM

<<somebody please show me how to upgrade kde once i installed knoppix in my hdd. i'd like to install it and get kopete since gaim still cannot connect to yahoo. pretty please?>>

Gaim connects to Yahoo.

Just set up your Yahoo account on the Yahoo website and then click on Gaim, select Yahoo, and type in your name and password.

sakiZ

**GerryA** · 07-19-2005, 08:55 PM

Guys, is it possible for me to use dpkg to create a .deb file from my Knoppix 4.0 DVD? The reason I ask is because I have a Debian installation that does not have high speed internet and I would love to be able to install some of the application found on the Knoppix 4.0 DVD without having to install Knoppix. Can I boot from the DVD, create .deb package files on the hard drive or a memory stick, and then use that to install the package on the Debian PC? I am running Debian Sarge installed on the remote PCs hard drive.

**UnderScore** · 07-19-2005, 09:47 PM

Let me see if I undertstand your concept. You want to: Use an existing installed Knoppix to create/build a installable .DEB file from the filesystem to then be installed on Debian 3.1 sarge because you do not have a high speed internet connection.

I will not say that it could never be done, but I will say that it probably can't be done easily.

A script was developed for those who do not have a high speed internet connection. It is called apt-zip. You can install it on your machine by running:
apt-get install apt-zip
It contains two main scripts: apt-zip-inst and apt-zip-list
View the manpage: man apt-zip-inst
See also http://packages.debian.org/stable/admin/apt-zip.html

As a sidenote, I must also say that Knoppix 4.0 is pulling from Debian's testing & unstable repositories while your Debian 3.1 sarge installation is most likely pulling packages from the stable repository. Mixing packages from different repositories is OK as long as you understand that the words testing & unstable are really what they mean. Testing/Unstable may break/messup a packages on your system.

**GerryA** · 07-19-2005, 10:15 PM

Ok, thanks for that, I will try the apt-zip package as that seems to be what I am looking for.
The reason this came up is because there are lots of intereting utilities etc on the 4.0 DVD that I would like to have on this Debian installation.

Thanks for your answer.

**pezz453** · 08-12-2005, 08:51 AM

Is there a way to list all current installed packages?

**Markus** · 08-12-2005, 09:12 AM

http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Knoppix_...ring_Howto#APT

**Freitag** · 03-18-2006, 05:32 PM

I have an odd problem. After a major upgrade using apt-get somehow my Xserver got messed up. I then went to xfree86 and downloaded and installed the most uptodate version of xfree86. This was probably a big mistake, but water under the bridge and all that.

Anyway I can run twm with no problems but kde is unstable. Can I undo all of this and reinstall the xorg based (?) version of Xserver?

I've tried dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86 but this doesn't even open a window and just thinks for a moment and returns my command prompt.

Thanks for any help,
Freitag

**stephen_pcola** · 08-24-2006, 07:54 AM

I see the last date in this topic is from awhile ago, most questions can be answered by reading other posts. I know to use apt-get instead of kpackage cause kpackage doesn't seem to prompt you about removing a whole bunch of packages when installing one like apt-get. I know that you have to see what is being removed and upgraded when you run apt-get update && upgrade or yes you will lose some functionality like xorg. All I need to know is what is the latest source list for knoppix, Is it what I already have in my list if I have the latest version of knoppix from 6/2, I seen a source list section somewhere I already had those though. where is a post about figuring out how to get around when you try to install a package and it tries to remove way too much? I mean is this part of the warning about installing knoppix as the Livecd straight to hard-drive dilemna I saw the warnings about? Is there a way to get around this? EX.-tried to install newest version of firefox and it tried to remove everything but the kitchen sink so I declined. Just tell me where to read, I know it's somewhere just couldn't find it, already read the apt-get tutorials.

**Demopoly** · 06-12-2010, 09:11 PM

Originally Posted by stephen_pcola

I see the last date in this topic is from awhile ago, most questions can be answered by reading other posts. I know to use apt-get instead of kpackage cause kpackage doesn't seem to prompt you about removing a whole bunch of packages when installing one like apt-get. I know that you have to see what is being removed and upgraded when you run apt-get update && upgrade or yes you will lose some functionality like xorg. All I need to know is what is the latest source list for knoppix, Is it what I already have in my list if I have the latest version of knoppix from 6/2, I seen a source list section somewhere I already had those though. where is a post about figuring out how to get around when you try to install a package and it tries to remove way too much? I mean is this part of the warning about installing knoppix as the Livecd straight to hard-drive dilemna I saw the warnings about? Is there a way to get around this? EX.-tried to install newest version of firefox and it tried to remove everything but the kitchen sink so I declined. Just tell me where to read, I know it's somewhere just couldn't find it, already read the apt-get tutorials.

perhaps this could be a new thread? "How to resolve apt-get conflict problems."
I've been trying "apt-get -f autoremove libisc50- " etc. etc., with a long list of packages each with a "-" at the end, and it hasn't worked. I may have missed something, but this instruction isn't entirely clear to me.
apologies if this has already been posted/solved elsewhere.