Broken Packages in Synaptic...

[alexvader]

Hi Forum... This is my second post in this forum, I am a knoppix Newbie. I do not intend to show up as an arrogant person with this statement, but I only state it so that the forum understands what is my level of Knoledge in Linux in general, so as not to RTFM me right on spot... I know how to use Linux, in fact, I started using it about 6 years ago, with RHEL 4... then went to Fedora/CentOS, used OpenSUSE for a bit, tried Ubuntu/Debian for a while, and finally settled with Slackware64 current, which I use in my laptop, and Arch Linux which I use at work, in my server. I am a mechanical Engineer mostly involved in simulation of aircraft, meaning that I use applications for Finite Elements Method, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Continuous/discrrete constrained optimization, Monte carlo simulation... in short, real CPU/RAM Hogs. Most of the codes that I use are non commercial, In-House codes... I am used to compiling things from source, C/C++ and Fortran 95 mainly. as my target is speed/precision, I use gcc/gfortran as well as icc/ifort/mkl. so after a brief introduction I made, just to explain that although this is my second post here, I am not a n00b, so please do not tell me to RTFM... If I ask something it does not mean that my level of knowlegde is too basic to make that question, without even "having the due respect" for the intricacies of what I am trying to acheive, like I have read somewhere in this forum. I am trying to build a LiveDVD from Knoppix base, targeted to mechanical/civil/aeronautical/naval engineers. As such, I will have to compile from source, build deb packages, and install them in a base knoppix system, and create a chrooted environment where to build my bootable iso Image. ...not that difficult.... ...my problem is that, for me to do this, I will need to set up a proper environment with libraries ( binaries and headers ) required as dependencies by the packages I intend to build... Netgen is not installable, although apt-get finds it, same to say about Paraview... etc ... So I use Synaptic, after having installed Knoppix in a spare lappy that I have, and having run apt-get update, and apt-get upgrade, some dependencies are broken... ... I have used Debian Lenny, and I could install stuff from the repositories, as well as with Ubuntu... But when trying to use Knoppix, I am always faced with unmet dependencies... even after having enabled all the repos available in software sources... is this normal....? This is not a Rant, but In Slackware, I would only have to build from source, create a package, install it... and there it was... all dependencies met... probably all I would have to do would be to hack into the options of ./configure... but that would be all... Is it normal that a package which shows up in Synaptic ( it is present in the repo to be installed ) might not be installed because some dependencies are not satisfied ...? In short, is it possible that a Repo of Knoppix has versioning incoherences...? or is there something that I am missing here...? BRGDS Alex

[klaus2008]

I made the experience that I had to tell apt-get which target release it should prefer. Usually I use a command like

apt-get -t testing dist-upgrade

for upgrading Knoppix. Sometimes some needed packages are still in the unstable or sid distribution. In that case I would use the command

apt-get -t sid install package

I think that the man pages are helpful

man apt-get
man apt_preferences

[alexvader]

H Klaus2008

Thanks for the answer... I have managed to install what is in the repos....

Now I will build some debs from source and install them, prior to create my own Live Distro

BRGDS

Alex