Broken dependencies - editing .deb files?
 

Hi all,

In my use of MEPIS v3.4-3 and installing many various progs - there have been times when I've gone into the .deb file and changed a 'dependency' type and/or version number by using the following CLI steps:

(using the .deb for Opera as an example)

**** extract 'control' file ****
ar x opera_*.deb control.tar.gz
gzip -d control.tar.gz
tar -xf control.tar ./control

"edit 'control' using kwrite changing the required depends line as needed"

**** return 'control' file to the .deb ****
tar -uf control.tar ./control
gzip control.tar
ar r opera_*.deb control.tar.gz

**** finish ****

Now this is all done from the command line in konsole!!

How would one code these steps up in 'bash' to do this for any .deb file like a simple GUI instead of using the command line method?

Any help or code would be much appreciated!

Are you saying you want to automate this all with a bash script? Doesn't seem too hard. It sounds like a good project for learning how to script to me. Perhaps you should read through a scripting guide or two. I found LinuxCommand to be very helpful in this regard.

Hi David the H,

Thanks for the reply :)

Yep, could be a good little project - thanks for the link - looks interesting!!

Will delve deeper! Mind you though, thought I might have got somebody to post some useful script(s) as to how to do this - save my the effort (the old brain cells are not quite firing on all cylinders these days) :).

Ta anyways..