Hold me tight...

...never let me go. Such is the anthem of the held debian package. I need a link to a good tutorial on such miserable things. I am playing with Kanotix BH7a and like every other distro out there, it came complete with some yummy held goodies. I know this isn't the kernel for me quite yet so am perfectly willing to nuke the bugger learning how to DEhold these darn things. I have a good link to apt here as well as debian's doc apt howto. I find all sorely lacking in explanations of the dreaded held package (I didn't hold the damn thing! :? ) Anyone have a link that can give me enough insight to totally hose this system trying to UNhold those packages the developer in their wisdom held?

I don't like you
But I love you
Seems that I'm always
Thinking of you...


Ahem. Does the Holding back packages from an upgrade section from the Debian Reference Manual help? You'd have to reverse the process it describes by changing "hold" to "install".

Looking at the list of selections on the live BH7a CD, looks like there are very few held packages; most of them are marked either "install" or "purge".


I love you and all I want you to do
Is just hold me, hold me, hold me, hold me --
You really got a hold on me

Hmmmmmmmm,

Reading both of you'essss posts, gives me the "feeling" of George Orwell's 1984 ( book, movie )

All there is, is love for Big Brother... Don't ask, how much, you have to love Big Brother, just, give your undieing love, all, and completely, to him...

You have to love, Knoppix, or Kanotix, or Red Hat, or SuSE, or Mandrake, or Debian. All there is, is love for... Don't ask how much to love... just give your unfailing, undieing, love, all, and completely, to... ( the only thing, we all need now, is, that "image" of "Big Brother" as a default background image, on EVERY distro of Linux, and it will be complete -=- the one where he is always watching, always seeing, and waiting, for you to "commit" a crime against the "thought police". )

Seriously though, I didn't really think about the issue, until reading both of you too's posts - in Windows, you have a nice GUI to "unload" accessories, or options, that "they" think you should have installed, and never-more be bothered with them... If you decide you want something, either newly, or previously, you can set a checkbox, and it gets added back in - you don't need Lan support, flip a switch, don't need "host mail server" support, flip a switch, don't have a FAX, flip a switch... ( I guess I need to seriously look at "synaptic" is it? )

Oh well, I am just waiting for my background image to fade out, and the image of Big Brother, to appear... with those all loving, all seeing, "peering" eyes...
Ms. Cuddles

LOL Eco. Last night I did go and use synaptic to upgrade the held libqt3mtdev (sp?) despite it's protests :twisted:. That was the corker that was blocking so much of my upgrading. I am here on BH7a now so nothing blew up obviously. I have to play around and see if I can find anything broken. There are a couple of others held here, menu, kdm - just off the top of my head oh, and grub too. What I was wondering, do you find a place in the distro's documentation on why they are held? What I wish for is some apt utility (like my bug fetcher) that would explain why the thing is held if the developer didn't leave a note behind. :wink:

LOL you too, Cuddles. I will take a linux developer for a big brother before an Uncle Billy :lol:

Nishtya,

as to your apt utility on finding out why a "package" is being held back...

Won't apt-cache policy [package] - give output on requirements? ( I know it shows dependancies, and what "it likes" to have with it, and what it "knocks heads" with, in the output...

Someone, either Eco or Stephen, did a "research" on a problem I had, previously, and used the above, in combination with "walking down the line" of the dependancies, and using apt-cache show [package] to view whats installed, stuff....

Not sure if this is what you meant, or something a little more, easier,
Ms. Cuddles

Sometimes a package is held because it's new version has a new dependency, ergo, wants another package to install. The easiest way I've found to check for this is:
apt-get -s --ignore-hold install held-packagename
If it says something like "These EXTRA packages will be installed" you'll know what it wants.

What I have been trying is all listing requirements in a form my brain can't take it in, know what I mean? Ditto dependancies, it is that "walking the line" that is getting me dizzy :oops: Trying to find what in that is why the package is held. Hard to explain, I thought I saw an example of output like I am thinking of somewhere in my googling of all things linux these last how many months :?

There are a lot of commands in apt family I am sure (and why does my man apt throw me a few crumbs and say it isn't even started?) but I am looking for something to filter the output or organize it in a way you can say "BINGO", that the bugger. Windows has such things for dlls. And linux being superior I am sure has something better :P

Will give markus's suggestion a try, that might be it - won't know it until I see it. Would be nice to see why in the world testdisk is held here, for instance. The only dependency I don't yet have installed for it is libntfs5, and the only dependency for libntfs5 is libc6 which I already have the proper version. Looking around at conflicts, I seem to be clear there too. Unless it is the fact that it says it conflicts with libntfs1-dev and replaces libntfs-1 dev :roll: I need a drink. It is only 11:00 am so I guess more caffeine will have to due

nishtya, if you are already running Debian SID then what's the big hurry about upgrading? Is there something missing from menu, kdm or grub that you will obtain by upgrading? Usually it is sufficient to let apt just work as it will. You're just making yourself dizzy for no good reason. :wink:

You want a howto for apt-get? Well you have only to look on this very site right here.

I found something the other day posted by Stephen called apt-file. Check it out.

apt-get update && apt-get install apt-file
apt-file update
apt-file list kdm

It's a very cool tool. I'm sure you can see how useful it is.
Now this link is sorta OT but I think you'll like it.
debaday

I have certainly found some very good .debs there that I did not know existed.

well mz, it's like this. I do the apt-get update thing then head onto the mall, err kpackage and look what newer versions of my stuff there is. And like in the case of devmt whatever, I can't upgrade the wardrobe without some bugger holding me back. In the case of that one, I just overroad it using synaptic (haven't found where kpackage can do that, darned it)

Sometimes newer is better and sometimes like it is with KDE it is a whole world of hurt. Upgrading to the 3.3 (is it still beta?) I lost my baghira and a couple of other goodies. Anxiously awaiting my eyecandy back with the new KDE.

Oh, gonna check out debaday......I love to shop :D

I'm not too familiar w/ KDE but it is a fairly complex desktop environment. So....not suprisingly when running the unstable version it stands to reason that some packages will make it into SID before others. That would certainly cause some delays in getting everything upgraded. XFCE4 is in the opposite direction. The Debian packages don't even come close to reflecting what xfce4 has turned into. Why? The way it's built has changed. Accordingly the maintainer of the xfce4.debs is going to have to make adjustments to the way he builds his .debs but surely they'll be done on his own time and agenda. Now, sometimes it's OK to force apt (even necessary) as it tries to stay on the safe side of things especially when there is doubt. I always laugh when someone posts "apt did it all by itself". No it didn't.

I've tried (not just read about) rpm's and I really feel that debs are vastly superior to rpm. I don't have time to build everything from source so Gentoo, Sourcemage, etc. are out of the question. I throw an absolute drag when I have to install software on windows boxes. Apt is so much easier.

All I can say is, the more you use apt the more you get to understand how it works. (well no kidding) I'm quite serious when I say that problems are rare. I do apt-get upgrade almost daily. ;) Usually if something is broken you can find it at Debian bugs or someone in #kanotix (ask Sonya) will know about any bugs. Please do join us and you will learn alot! It is multinational irc channel where all levels of Debian users are expected and accepted unlike some other irc channels ( I won't mention any names) *cough* #debian........., where you might get flamed for simply saying hello.