I need to install all of php4. so when i apt-get install php4* i get dependency errors. There are only three packages that I need to prevent apt-get from installing, how can i prevent apt-get from installing these packages. They include two php3 packages and php4-ps.

Hi.

You may need to "apt-get update" first to correct all dependency errors.

hope this helps.

the dependency errors are caused because php3 and php4 cannot coexist but when i do apt-get install php4* it wants to install parts of php3 as well.

Any ideas?

make sure the package you want, belong to the version you're using.

try using aptitude to manually select all the pieces and bits you want. If you dont have it just apt-get install aptitude, but i think it's a debian core utility.

In Aptitude you can highlight a package and then press Enter to see its dependencies. And you can return to previous view by pressing "q". In this way, you can press Enter on some meta-package to see its depends and pick the ones that you want by first highlighting them and then pressing "+".

When you're done, you can press "g" and Aptitude shows you the planned changes. At this point you can cancel the installation of any package by highlighting it and pressing "=". To proceed to download & install the marked packages, just press "g" again.

Always remember to update the package database (by pressing "u") before you install new packages via Aptitude.

thanks. I give that a try.

dselect is also very easy to use. It's a frontend for dpkg and is what I use for finding packages I want. It'll work out all the dependency errors by telling you what other things the package you are trying to select needs. Hope this helps