Synaptic won't install on HD (libatk?)

Hi, all.

Just installed my first Knoppix-to-HD, and man, was it slick! I've been a RedHat and Gentoo abuser for a few years, but was never able to get Debian to do an adequate install on its own. Knoppix made it easy.

But...

I'm trying to install Synaptic to GUI my apt-get installs, and I'm having a weird problem. I've performed an 'apt-get update' with the default source settings, and on my dialup it took awhile, but finished! Now, though, is where the problems begin...

Code:

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root@sloppyseconds:/etc# apt-get -s install synaptic/unstable
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Selected version 0.45-1 (Debian:unstable) for synaptic
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.

Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that
the package is simply not installable and a bug report against
that package should be filed.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  synaptic: Depends: libatk1.0-0 (>= 1.4.1) but 1.2.4-1 is to be installed
E: Broken packages

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So. Should I force the issue? As you can see, I tried to force the /unstable option, but met with the same 'libatk' issue. If I try to do an 'apt-get -s upgrade libatk', I get 105MB of files that need updating first!!! Ouch...

If I'm not using the right commands for 'apt-get', please accept my apologies. Like I said, I've NEVER been able to run a Debian-based system, so I'm not used to doing much more than 'emerge sync && emerge synaptic'... :)

Thanks,
Dan

EDIT: I tried installing 'synaptic-debtags/unstable' instead, and received the same error as above...

You need to get a later version of libatk1.0-0 so you would

Code:

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[08:07 PM Fri Oct 24: stephen @ ~]
>$ apt-cache policy libatk1.0-0
libatk1.0-0:
  Installed: 1.2.4-1
  Candidate: 1.2.4-1
  Version Table:
    1.4.1-1 0
        500 http://ftp2.de.debian.org unstable/main Packages
 *** 1.2.4-1 0
        990 http://ftp2.de.debian.org testing/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
    1.0.1-2 0
        500 http://ftp2.de.debian.org stable/main Packages

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to see where you need to get the package from and in this case it is unstable so to install apt-get -s install synaptic libatk1.0-0/unstable should simulate the install if everything goes well then remove the -s to install.

Why do you want synaptic form the unstable branch? AFAIK you should get it from stable or testing (== the default) when you run Knoppix.

Dunno. Like I said, I've been a Gentoo user for some time, and have used unmasked ~x86 packages (like a cross between Debian unstable and testing) the entire time (haven't used Gentoo as a server, strictly as a workstation, and only on a network with distcc clients available!) with few problems. Old habits are hard to break. Plus, it's a GUI frontend for apt-get, not apt-get itself, so it seemed a fairly safe upgrade over synaptic stable.

BTW, the hints above worked perfectly, and opened my eyes to more of the options available in the apt system! I'm impressed; can't wait to play more with this system!

Now I can easily rid the system of some of the cruft; so far, I've freed up over 500MB of programs I didn't need. That would've taken far longer if I'd had to use CLI for everything. GUIs are still good for some tasks (of course, I'm a diehard Mac user from System 6, so I usually lean toward GUI alternatives)! :lol:

Thanks again.
Dan

Quote:

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Originally Posted by torque2k

Now I can easily rid the system of some of the cruft; so far, I've freed up over 500MB of programs I didn't need.
Dan

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To free up some more space you can apt-get install localepurge to get rid of the excess locales and man pages in those locale languages that are on the system and remove the kde-i18n-?? packages and also the xserver-??? packages that are not needed but are still there that will probably free up at least another couple hundred MB.

I had the same problem.

A super-easy way to fix it is to skip apt-get. Just google for the synaptic .deb package. Once you can grab it, kde's kpackage should get it seamlessly installed.

Hope that helps,
-P.