Program Dependencies Problem
 

I'm getting terribly annoyed with this dependencies thing in Linux.

I get everything all setup and running the way I want it to and decide to install LinNeighborhood and xCHM.

For the last 3 days I've been tearing my hair out trying to get them to install, without success.

I go to install LinNeighborhood and I'm told I need GTK+, so I go to rpmfind.net and get it but when I go to install that I'm told I need a newer glibc, so I get that and it tells me I need something else...and when I get that I'm told that there is a version conflict!

Good lord! Why the h@!# don't the programmers supply the required runtimes with theor software!

Is there anywhere I can go that has everything I need to install and run a program?

Even at rpmfind.net I enter the 'dependency' I need and it lists 50 or 60 instances all with different build numbers. Are they all the same? Can I close my eyes and pick? Are they related to the kernal version i'm running?

I'm really lost here.....does anyone have any advice that might ease this transition?

I'm running Mandrake 8.1 on an old compaq presario 600MHZ notebook.

Thanks,
DrakIE

Hi DrakIE!

Yeah, that stinks, doesn't it? We've all been there too and from time to time we are facing a few dependencies problems too. Thing is, the Mandrake you are using is really old, so installing newer packages with older packages won't work very well (if at all). Also, rpm's are pretty stinky (sorry, but true). A better way of installing programs is compiling from source. Besides not worrying about dependencies so much (that may also happens) it gives a better performance.

But the best way is using tools like apt-get for Debian and Redhat (among other flavors). It works just as easy as this:

apt-get install mplayer

Typing the above command as root in a terminal will make apt-get connect to a server and download all mplayer gui's, fonts, codecs, dependencies and install it for you. As easy as that. Not everything is available through apt-get (Debian has over 17.000 packages right now, so it really is a lot). Most distros uses a similar tool like apt, Gentoo uses emerge, Slackware uses swaret, Mandrake uses urpmi.

All I can recommend, dump Mandrake 8x and get a newer one 9.0 (better yet, dump Mandrake and get Redhat or Libranet, which is Debian based) or switch for a nice, but a little hard to use, distro as Slackware and go for compiling everything, it's just that good ;)

Here you can find Libranet (my distro of choice for the moment), here is a LQ review of Libranet and here is apt-get for Redhat if you want to check out the possibilities of it first....

Good luck!

Thanks guys for the info. I'm gonna try to d/l urpmi and play with it. I don't really have the option to 'upgrade' to a higher version or distro cause I'm running a horrid compaq 600MHZ celeron laptop. Hell I can't even run KDE with it cause konquerer crashes every time I use it. GNOME runs pretty stable on it but it's also terribly slow.

I wonder if I downloaded the latest kernal and compiled it, would that give me access to these newer installation capabilities?

Thanks again
DrakIKE

Nope, the kernel tweaks will make your pc boot faster(?) or enable/disable some hardware function stuff. The libraries dependencies can only be fixed, well, by installing the libraries :). I forgot to tell you, Mandrake and Redhat are slow, period. It can be made faster, but they are optimized for faster computers. I've Libranet 2.7 Classic Free running in a Compaq 166MHZ with 32 of RAM and 2GB HD, and one Dell P2 - 400MHZ running Libranet 2.8.1 and they both run great. You may want to check a lighter desktop manager as well, such as Blackbox, Fluxbox or XFCE. They have less eye candy then KDE or Gnome, but definitely very, very fast. Switching to Libranet, Debian or Slackware (which runs in my Compaq...) would make wonders with your Celeron, trust me ;).

Cheers!

Wow..that's great info! Mandrake & Red Hat was the 1st distros I ever tried way back in 99 and I've used it off and on since then.
I'm gonna go with your recommendation and give libranet a go....i can't imagine having a linux system that runs fast...i'm smiling just thinking about it, especially on that crappy compaq machine!

Thanks again,
DrakIE <-- suppose I'll have to modify the nick.....

later

gheheh :) Every single person who actually sees my compaq running Linux cannot believe it :) ghehe. You'd be surprise to know that I use a Slackware 3.5 based distro (which goes by the name of Grey Cat Linux 3.0) running, also nice, in a 386 processor with 8 of RAM and clock speed of 75 MHZ. It runs Netscape, vi, xterm and IceWM as desktop manager. Well, I doubt you can go any lower than that machine with Linux. Also, it has a triple boot: Dos 6.22, Win 3.1 and Grey Cat 3.0... gheheh.

EDIT: if you really go with Libranet (and I hope you will, you won't regret), remember that 2.7 classic free edition is a bit dated, but much, much newer and faster then your current Mandrake. Libranet 2.8 and above(non free) provides 3D acceleration right out the box for supported cards as Nvidia's. Besides that, Libranet has a small forum here, but growing(hopefully) a very active forum at their page and a very friendly IRC channel, say hi to spike there, that's me, ghehe ;))

you can use kde on a 600 mhz. i have a 400 and a 500 mhz that i am running slack and lorma on . slack is a little unstable right now, cuz of memory issues, but lorma runs kde fine on a 400 mhz with 192 ram