KDE package confusion

[Durand Hicks]

Hi all,

Just did something out of the blue, I ran apt-get -s install -t testing kde and it looked like it wanted to install all of kde 3.1.5, even though I already have it as is from knoppix. Was this a special version of kde that apt-get doesn't know that it was installed in the first place? When I checked to see if it could be removed, it says kde not installed, but it is on my hard drive and I'm using it. What's up with that? Btw, apt-get -s install -t unstable kde shows that some 98 packages need to be upgraded and 148 additional packages will be installed to upgrade to kde 3.2.1. Now, how could it suggest 98 of the kde packages needed to be upgraded from unstable when under testing it says nothing needs to be upgraded?

[Stephen]

Hi all,

Just did something out of the blue, I ran apt-get -s install -t testing kde and it looked like it wanted to install all of kde 3.1.5, even though I already have it as is from knoppix. Was this a special version of kde that apt-get doesn't know that it was installed in the first place? When I checked to see if it could be removed, it says kde not installed, but it is on my hard drive and I'm using it. What's up with that?

The kde package is a meta package which is used to install the whole of kde it is not installed because Klaus did not want the entire set of packages in Knoppix. When you simulated the install of it apt did what you told it to do and would have installed all the packages.

Btw, apt-get -s install -t unstable kde shows that some 98 packages need to be upgraded and 148 additional packages will be installed to upgrade to kde 3.2.1. Now, how could it suggest 98 of the kde packages needed to be upgraded from unstable when under testing it says nothing needs to be upgraded?

The version in testing is up to date therefore nothing new has to be installed, in unstable kde is at a newer version so the packages have to be upgraded to install it.

[Durand Hicks]

Stephen,

On behalf of newbies and neophytes in linux who do hd installs of knoppix, is it advisable for us to apt-get the full kde package or leave it as it is? I'm aware that some users already want or have upgraded to kde 3.2.1 which is in unstable. But for those sticking with kde 3.1.5, I'm sort of content leaving it as it is, but if I want to change the widgets to say alloy or plastix (found on www.kde-look.org, I would need the full kde package (according to the documentation) to get the widgets to compile correctly. As it is from knoppix, it's very functional, though I'm not the kind to just stick with a basic theme, and I like to change things around to suit my tastes.