After installing Debian Etch on my Gateway 7330GZ laptop, I am trying to clear up a few issues, including sound and wireless. I finally got my wireless working, but ended up with another issue. I tried installing the firmware with fwcutter, but the install failed. I found out later that the hosting site for fwcutter is down, so I found a great tutorial on how to manually download and install the drivers using fwcutter. I followed the tutorial, and I now have wireless.

However, when I run apt-get upgrade, or apt-get install anything, I get the following error:

Case:~# apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
Setting up bcm43xx-fwcutter (005-2) ...
--07:44:28-- http://boredklink.googlepages.com/wl_apsta.o
=> `wl_apsta.o'
Resolving boredklink.googlepages.com... 74.125.47.118
Connecting to boredklink.googlepages.com|74.125.47.118|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 404 Not Found
07:44:28 ERROR 404: Not Found.

dpkg: error processing bcm43xx-fwcutter (--configure):
subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
bcm43xx-fwcutter
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
Case:~#

My questing is how do I clear that install out of apt? I have run both clean and autoclean, but the error persists. I know of apt-get remove, but I am afraid that using that will disable wireless. I googled the problem, but found nothing about clearing failed installs,just how to get around them and complete the install. I do not need to do this, as the wireless is now working.

Thanks for any help, I know this is the place to get it

Try the -f option. It forces apt to install, even if not all requirements are met. Mind you, this can be dangerous! Check your sources.list though, I doubt the googlepages link causing the error should be there (but perhaps you've put it in yourself)

My sources list is default with the addition of a link for Opera. I do not want to try to force install, as wireless is working. I am afraid that doing that will break the install. I followed the following tutorial to get my wifi working:

http://www.debiantutorials.org/content/view/153/213/

In it, the author said that the firmware server has been down. I was assuming that was the googlepages issue. Is there another way to clear the failed fwcutter install from apt?

Thanks,

I am sure there is, but I do not know it (even having searched, like yourself).

But it seems to me that you can just mark fwcutter for (maybe: first for installation, and then) uninstallation in your GUI package-manager, or at the command line with apt, because the only function of this program is to "cut" or extract the microcode (firmware) that is to be uploaded to your wireless chip, out from the windows installation program. It has already done that. The firmware code is already on your system (because it is working), ready to upload to your wireless chip at boot. It doesn't need re-cutting every time.

So, I do not think you should worry.

Oh OK. I wasn't sure if I needed fwcutter now or not. Based on the fact that it's job is already done, I should be able to just remove it with:

apt-get remove bcm43xx-fwcutter

Is that correct?

Thanks,

Well, apt doesn't seem to think that it has been installed, so it may not be able to remove it, but give it a go.

Good luck.

I was concerned that might be the case, but removing with apt seemed to do the trick. I just did an update/upgrade and installed kwifimanager and the error didn't appear. And all of this was done with my wireless.

Thanks for the help; now on to the sound

Excellent
Hope it survives a reboot.
May I suggest you start a new thread?

I will; thanks again.

Sorry, but that is not true. '-f' stand for --fix-broken. This is a generally safe option, and usually the first thing to try is apt got mixed up. apt-get -f install without any packages fixes about half of the problems when packages have been partially installed. (In the other half of the cases it is more difficult)

The other option, '--force-yes' (note there is no one letter option) does force apt-get to assume 'yes' on all questions, which might be dangerous, especially when apt asks to remove your running kernel etc.

What really might break your system is to use dpkg with an option like ---force-depends or --force conflicts. The only sane use for these options I have seen is when mutual dependencies exist for two packages which both must be upgraded. Only when guaranteed that both packages are being installed it is safe to use a force option. This is hardly ever needed by the user, but apt does sometimes.

jlinkels

Thanks for the info. I already performed the remove option, and it worked. I appreciate the info though, as I prefer using apt over aptitude or synaptic. I guess it's because that's what I learned in the beginning, but I still believe that knowing how to use apt is very useful, especially when other things don't work. It's evident that I still have quite a bit of learning to do.

aptitude works almost identically to apt from the command line and handles dependency resolution better. I don't know why you would prefer apt. aptitude has been the recommended package manager since etch was released.. check the etch release notes.

aptitude - command line reference

Aptitude - configuration file reference

you do not need to use the ncurses interface with aptitude if that is what you are thinking..

aptitude update
aptitude upgrade
aptitude install <packagename>
aptitude remove <packagename>
aptitude purge <packagename>
aptitude search <packagename>
etc..
etc..

I only use apt over the others because that is what I learned. I was learning apt as I was learning ls, pwd, and some of the other basic commands. Thanks for the links and references; I will definitely give aptitude a try, as I prefer command line, and I like the idea of better dependency handling.

Thanks,

Well if you are going to use apt, stick with it.. you should not switch back and forth between the two package managers.

if you decide to switch to aptitude you should first tell aptitude to keep all of your current packages, to avoid a surprise uninstall during an update.. if some packages aren't flagged correctly aptitude will uninstall them during an update or when adding or removing other software. aptitude keep-all sets the flags properly for all your currently installed programs to avoid that issue from occurring.

aptitude update
aptitude keep-all

Once that is done you can proceed with using aptitude in the same manner in which you used apt-get.