apt-get Created Dependency Hell!!
 

OK I'm real new to RedHat but I have heard about dependency hell. I installed apt-get like suggested and ran apt-get update. Afterwards it said I had 87 packages not upgraded. So naturally I used apt-get upgrade and downloaded updates to my software for an hour. After that I wanted to use an mp3 and the ?xine? didn't work. So naturally I did an apt-get install xine (I think xine is the name, but whatever the name is for the media player.)

Well apt-get responds with a whole bunch of problems about dependency and that I should run apt-get -f install to fix dependency hell (which apt-get created!!!) - but only if I know what I'm doing. Now I'll be honest, I guess I knew it wasn't really going to fix anything but I tried anyway because this was my first install and I can't belive apt would do such a thing that it was designed to ALLEVIATE. Guess what it did? IT REMOVED THE WHOLE FRICKING LINUX OS. I tried a repair and RedHat said it couldn't even find the version number!!!

What gives? Is apt-get upgrade useless? How do I update my software nicely? Where do I get Linux OS patches? If I use up2date and then run apt-get -f install will it help fix dependencies? I just need to know how to use this software gracefully to get to a fully upgraded system!!

Thanks for any help!

Before you used Apt for the first time did you use apt-get update twice, on the download site they said you would have to run apt-get update twice due to a bug in the program, then the apt-get upgrade. I did this while using RH8 and have not had any problems at all with apt. Maybe try doing these steps once more and then do an upgrade, then try installing xine.

Hope this helps

BTW, were you root when you ran apt.

Yes I ran it as root, but did not run apt-get update twice. I'll try that and see what happens. I went ahead and used up2date so hopefully when I install apt-get there won't be any problems.

Thanks for the hint.

Yeh, well... Total reinstall of RedHat and here we are again. This time I used up2date before using apt at all. Everything looked great. Installed apt and that was fine. Did apt-get update twice, even thrice. Tried apt-get upgrade and it tweaked about 2 or 3 files.

BAM now all of a sudden apt-get doesnt work, It says that basically every file on RedHat "predepends or depends, but it is not installable." And then wants to remove them all!!!

So wtf is up with apt-get upgrade? Is there a way to undo whatever the hell it did? I tried reinstalling apt-get but it didn't fix anything. Is there something wrong with my install now or is this just an apt issue?

With how fast it went bad it seems like there shouldn't be much trouble to fix this problem...

PS - I had to post this using konqueror because htmlview mysteriously doesn't work now either!!!

I'm sorry to hear about all the problems, I'm at a lost, I'm not sure what is happening with your APT, I've been using APT for about a month and haven't had any of the troubles you have mentioned. Maybe look into Ximian Red Carpet it works quite well, make sure to Subscribe to the Red Hat channel, you can then go through the lists of files and check the ones you want. Most of the time Red Carpet will solve the dependencies.

If you are interested this is where I got my APT-RPM from:

APT for Red Hat

and here is the link for Red Carpet Updater:

Ximian Red Carpet Updater

Hope these help, to fix what has happened try running RHN up2Date.

Once again, thank you for your input. As it turns out, the version of apt-get I was using from freshrpms.net is bad. I used the verson from the website you linked me to and that fixed the problem. As for mozilla, I'm just going to install netscape instead. That should fix that problem very easily!:D

No Problem I'm glad I was able to help :)