Problems with Apt, RPM and Dependancies in Redhat 9
 

Hi!

I'm trying to configure an old 133Mhz IBM Aptiva as a jukebox for our house. I got Redhat 9 up and running on it, but I'm having difficulty with some dependancy issues.

I'm trying to install Music Player Daemon (MPD), the software I want to use to play music from our network. I've gotten the RPM, but when I
rpm -ivh mpd-0.9.3-1.i386.rpm

I get:
warning: mpd-0.9.3-1.i386.rpm: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 9b05ad27
error: Failed dependencies:
libFLAC.so.4 is needed by mpd-0.9.3-1
libao is needed by mpd-0.9.3-1
libao.so.2 is needed by mpd-0.9.3-1
libasound.so.2 is needed by mpd-0.9.3-1
libasound.so.2(ALSA_0.9) is needed by mpd-0.9.3-1

So I'm trying to track down these dependancies, and I try to install libao, and it requires arts, so I try to install arts, and it requires something else, so I think this is silly, I'll just get apt.
So I do, and it installs beautifully. But no matter what package I try to install, I get:
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
E: Couldn't find package <package>

Does this for libao, mpd, arts, and I tried emacs and other things I KNOW are packages, to the same effect.
I modified the sources.list file to include other sites, placed them first even, to no effect.

Anyone have any ideas?

Random info that may help you/save time.

[man rpm]
rpm -V [verify]
rpm --test [will check for dependancies without actually installing]

GNOME RPM ~ in terminal run: gnorpm
you can manage your rpm packages here. You can install, uninstall, verify, packages - even from the CR-ROM etc. If you want to install a package you've downloaded, click Add.
Also check out: Find Packages [click on Operations > Find Packages where you can then query, verify or uninstall packages.

Hope this was helpful.

Thanks, Mossy.

I think I've read man rpm a dozen times today alone! :P

rpm's working fine, it tells me what dependancies are needed, and I've spent a couple days trying to track 'em all down. problem is, one leads to another to another, and that's what apt is supposed to take care of.
I guess my question shoudl have been more specific: Why can't apt identify packages that are, indeed, sitting in the specified server's download directory (just checked), and how can I fix it?

One thing I did encounter with RPM while trying to install emacs:
Emacs requires something like libc.so.6. WHen I tried to install the appropriate package, though, I got a whole bunch of errors that claim "file <blah> conflicts with <blah> - glibc (installed)". and it refused to install the libraries.
Does anyone know if the glibc libraries installed with RH9 provide the appropriate dependancies, and I can force an emacs install? Or is this likely to screw things up?

A sidenote: I'm just running a shell on this box - at 133 Mhz, I'll be lucky to get mp3s to decompress in realtime without the overhead of X. SO all those fancy GUI tools are out. :P

Thanks.

If you install packages with another packet manager the other packet managers may not see them because they use different locations.

Fresh RH9 install though. Only packages came off the CD during installation. Pretty sure apt was actually the first successful rpm install. And haven't installed anything since.

The problem is that nothing seems to want to install, period.

did you select anything from the developement section of the install?
This is all the compilers etc etc.

I can't remember exactly - I could post the result of rpm -qa, but it's big.

I do know I have gcc, python, and glibc installed, and likely other dveelopment options - I wanted to be able to use the thing as a coding workstation too.

try rpm -qa | more

this will print per page.

Yeah, my SSH client has scrollback so it's not an issue - thanks for the tip though.
I can see all the installed packages, but I'm not sure what all of them are. I listed the ones I recognized as development-related. I could post the output of rpm -qa if it will help, I just don't know how it would, and I don't want to spam the forum.

Has anyone experienced similar problems with apt? I'd really like to get it up and running, and I'm sure it's something obvious I'm missing because I don't know how the thing works, exactly.

Thanks!

Hi! Rounan.
I'm Happy Gimper.

I assume that this is what you want to know.:
"Why my rpm command complains about missing packages while all packages needed are installed?"

Ok. Here is the answer: The reason is that your package management system do not recognize installed packages as "installed" because they are not on the database of pacakge system.



I'll give you more details about your problem:

In debian based linux distribution (like yours), packages are managed by apt and each package is manipulated by dpkg. Note that package management system(apt commands) and package manager(dpkg) is another thing. apt commands work as a frontend for dpkg and resolves the package dependencies. Apt achieves this by registering package information to its own database at install time.
When you install new packages, apt queries this database and checks dependencies. Behind the apt commands running, dpkg works to install/configure each package as a backend.
In other words, apt tells dpkg what to install and then dpkg is run by apt.
In fact, dpkg itself does not have dependencies resolution functionality. (see "man dpkg")


Now I guess you see where the problem is. Just consider your rpm as dpkg! Do you run rpm via package management system?

I'm not a RH user and know nothing of rpm package management but I think that:
rpm is usually run via package management system such as yum and apt-rpm and it should not be run alone. Otherwise your package management system cannot know which package is installed causing failed dependencies error.

Just do it.
Hope this will work for you.

[EDIT]
I'm sorry. Things are different from what I thought.
rpm/dpkg can install a package if the needed packages are installed.
However, dpkg and rpm have their own database or something they query to check out the installed packages. They do not share it.
dpkg/rpm itself can detect failed dependencies but cannot resolve them like aptitude.