Hello!

I have a very troublesome issue I need some help with. I'm using Etch, and have compiled the latest JACK audio server from source. Every audio package I want to install tries to install the version of JACK from the repos as a dependency, which I do not want. How do I tell apt to simply install everything BUT the version of JACK from the repos? I've read about pinning, but that method wants you to have a specific package already installed. In my case, there is no package installed, b/c I compiled it myself. I have also considered running a mixed system, but that seems too tricky. Finally, I have attempted to put the package "jackd" on hold by running this:

Yet it ignores this if jackd is a required dependency for a package I want to install.

Short of compiling all applications by hand (yikes!!!), is there no way to do this? Am I wanting something that is impossible?

Thanks for your help!

It's possible to define a "dummy" equiv package that will fulfill your dependency needs: Apt HOW-TO: equivs However, I've never tried it myself.

One thing I recommend when compiling a program from source is to run it through the checkinstall program instead of running "make install". Checkinstall will wrap up the program's files in a .deb package before installing them, thus making the thing visible to apt. I believe this will satisfy any dependencies for the program as well, though it might depend on the exact package name you give it.

Be careful though. An apt update may try to overwrite your source-compiled version with theirs, so be sure to pin the package to prevent this.

If you want newer packages, you might consider dist-upgrading to testing.
How did you install jack? As a .deb with checkinstall or some such I take it?

Edit: Slow typing.

In briefly looking over the documentation for equivs, this seems to be exactly what I'm looking for. Thank you very much!!!

Josh

No, I just did configure - make - make install, but your point about using checkinstall is well taken, I will do that in the future. Thank you!