I'm new to debian, can someone please explain apt-get to me?

I ran apt-get update and then apt-get upgrade.
After that I tried to install an app from source that said it couldn't find gtk-config. So I tried running 'apt-get install libgtk1.2-dev'
When I do it tells me that libgtk1.2-dev depends upon xlibs-dev but is not going to be installed.

So I run 'apt-get install xlibs-dev' and it tells me that it depends on xlibs but xlibs 4.3.0-... is to be installed and it won't install xlibs-dev.

All I want is gtk-config on my system, what do I have to do to get it?

Thanks in advance,
jpbarto

Would you mind posting an exact transcription of the command, and console output? Would help to identify the problem.

One thing I ran into after a fresh install was that dselect's package selections hadn't been installed properly. I can't remember the command, exactly, but check man dpkg, man dselect, and man apt-get
I think it was something along the lines of:

apt-get dselect-upgrade

Other than that, find a local apt mirror, and update your /etc/apt/sources.list?

It just sounds like you've got some confused dependancies.

--Rounan

I'll try and post up the command's output tonight. Also just as an aside, the installation is a morphix install (as in installing from their livecd) not a fresh clean debian install... not sure if that's good, bad, or neither.

jpbarto

Morphix is amazing. Its a little weird, from a pure debian perspective but its much better than any Debian intaller I've ever seen (though I haven't tried their latest).

If you have morphix, try and solve most of your problems with synaptic first. Its graphic and more user friendly imho. Apt is a great dependency checker but remember that what you're doing is pretty complex. Also the morphix.org web site is very friendly too.

Not to change the subject, but the reason I've begun playing with Morphix is to create an Educational software livecd. One of the secretaries in our office has a son who's 4 or 5 and is going to kindergarten soon and she's worried because she says he yet does not know his ABCs. He knows the song, but is unable to recognize an 'A' as an 'A' or that it makes an 'ah' sound. So I was thinking about making a boot CD that would have software like Linux Letters and Numbers and GCompris installed on it.

I'm lucky that there were debian packages for both of these apps but I've been finding some others and I'm hoping that there are packages for these as well because if there isn't I'm back to my problem of compiling from source and needing gtk-config installed.

Anyone have suggestions of good educational games to install? (again just as a side note to solving the dependancy issues).

Ok, I've moved on and I'm trying to install an app called ChildsPlay. I have two debian packages Childsplay.deb and Childsplay_plugins.deb. They depend upon Python and Pygame. When I try to install them using 'dpkg -i' I get this...

Selecting previously deselected package childsplay.
(Reading database ... 35603 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking childsplay (from childsplay_0.68-woody-1.all.deb) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of childsplay:
childsplay depends on python (<< 2.2); however:
Version of python on system is 2.3-4.
childsplay depends on pygame (>= 1.4-1); however:
Package pygame is not installed.
dpkg: error processing childsplay (--install):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
childsplay


I installed pygame using apt-get and it installed Python2.1-pygame but ChildsPlay still won't install. According to dpkg-query the pygame installed conflicts with any .deb packages of pygame << 1.5-2. What's the problem with this thing?

From one Debian newbie to another, here's what I read from your last post:


What sub-distribution are you running (Woody/Stable?)

I've learned that each particular sub-dist of Debian has default versions of the applications that come bundled in their 'default' install. You can over-ride this in apt get by specifying specific version numbers (see below) and ensuring that you have a path to those libraries in your sources file (/etc/apt/sources)

This is due to the first conflict. Once you satisfy that conflict then this will proceed.

A little care in considering the installation of the older library so that you don't break any other dependencies that the current version fills. Instead try to see if there is a version of childsplay in the distro that you are running.

Hope that was semi-helpful.

You can read all about apt-get at debian.org

I got childsplay and other python issues resolved, not totally mind you, however the packages did install. I further ran into problems with the python package distutils.

However the problem of "but I installed that package already!" became clearer when I looked into /usr/lib. It seems that by executing 'apt-get python*' to get libraries such as pygame, distutils, and assetml I have managed to install _FOUR_ different versions of python (1.5, 2.1, 2.2, & 2.3)!!! So after looking into the directories I discovered that executing apt-get install would install say the pygame package for python2.3, but not for any other versions, then when installing distutils it would install into 1.5 thus spreading my required installations across 4 versions of the interpreter (!!).

So after a little experimentation I have managed to meed dependancies and get these packages installed. Not all are working completely but those are different issues I will have to look into.

Until then I want to say thank you to all of you who have offered up your time and advice.

Sincerely,
jpbarto