Apt, RPM and general hell
I've recently been in a very severe dependency hell. I'm trying to get out. Please help!
RPMdrake has never been much help. A few days ago, I got Synaptic working -- barely -- with one (1) source only. I've seen it mentioned a few times elsewhere: ftp://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/linux/distribu....2/i586/media/ I only figured out how to actually phrase the sources.list file after seeing a nice little page called The Perfect Setup. However, something went wrong (I don't know what) and Synaptic started crashing every time there were dependencies for a package. I've seen the same error elsewhere, but found no real help. Finally, I tried uninstalling synaptic & apt and reinstalling newer versions. Well, that put me into another dependency hell. Apt requires a veeerrrrryyyyy long string of dependencies, regardless of version. The newer versions (which might solve the crashing problem) require things that either aren't available for Mandrake, or which require themselves (!). For example, synaptic-0.56 requires apt-libs-0.5.5cnc6-rb3. apt-libs-0.5.5cnc6-rb3 requires librpm.so.0, which is apparently only available in the rpm called "rpm". Well, I downloaded the only one I could find (for Mandrake 9.0), but when I update my sources, RPMdrake refuses to see it. I tried from the command line, which tells me that apparently rpm-4.0 (again, the only version I could find) requires libdb-I'm in a total, utter dependency hell. Finding RPMs is taking forever, because http://rpm.pbone.net is apparently under a lot of load right now, and for whatever dumb reason, their search results are returned in reverse alphabetical order! That means that what I want is usually on page 20, or 15, or anyway five page reloads past the first. No wonder their servers are under a lot of load! Not to mention, one of the things I installed while I had Synaptic going was Gnome 2.8. It's nicer overall, but the new MIME handling sucks. Before, when I double-clicked on an RPM, the root password prompt would come up automatically and then I'd be taken into RPMdrake. Now, there's only a message saying "You don't have root access, so you can only browse the packages" comes up. I see no way to make Gnome ask for the password and then take me into RPMdrake. (Yes, I've tried editing the MIME instructions to include "--root", but that seems to make no difference. It takes me into RPMdrake but forgets the package I'd clicked on, which means nothing happens.) This means I have to spend an extra several minutes, per package, updating my RPM database! Then, when I do that, I always get an error message saying "This source cannot be updated, and will be automatically stopped. Error: %$#%$#%" Yes, it actually just shows garbage! But it apparently does register the new RPMs. So, that's more wasted time! This multiples out to extra hours overall! This is ridiculous! Does anyone have a way out? Please help with any of these problems! Things were going so well until I tried to install new software... |
Mandrake has, for many years, had a tool called urpmi installed in it by default. Once you have set up the repositories, you would issue urpmi <someprogram> and it would install.
Go to Easy Urpmi to see how to set it all up. |
I have URPMI installed and set up. I've been to Easy URPMI many, many, many times. But URPMI doesn't do anything about dependency problems. Thus, I'm still in dependency hell.
|
urpmi solves depedencies automatically by using packages from repositories, just like apt does. If you're having dependency problems then you're trying to install a package not made for Mandrake and replacing urpmi with apt (which does the same thing) will not help :(
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
What where you trying to install to start with that got dependency errors? |
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Code:
# generated Tue Oct 11 01:45:10 2005 Quote:
Quote:
I also just had problems with ALSA, though, after upgrading to Gnome 2.8. Trying to upgrade through RPMdrake was a pain; when I selected xmms-alsa1.2.10, it simply said "The following package cannot be selected: xmms-alsa1.2.10". When I tried in Synaptic, it told me specifically what dependencies weren't being fulfilled. Synaptic is currently crashing when I hit "mark" on multiple upgrades, as my previous post mentioned, so I've had to go through and pick packages individually. Even so, it's been much more smooth that RPMdrake. I didn't try URPMI with xmms-alsa (or I don't think I did -- it's getting hard to remember), but I doubt it would've been any different than my experience with RPMdrake. |
APT is not well supported on Mandriva because urpmi works just fine and saying its inferior to apt is wrong. There could be something broken on your system thats causing urpmi to mulfunction or maybe you just don't know much about using urpmi. If you don't know how to use urpmi properly then take a look at the tutorial at zebulon.org.uk. Some of the links maybe be broken but the urpmi guide is very useful. You also need to make sure that you have setup the main, contrib, updates and plf repos using the instructions at easyurpmi. Once your sources have been setup, you need to make sure that you update them regularly so that urpmi can find new packages. If after reading the urpmi tutorial, you still think urpmi is not doing its job properly then maybe you are better off using Debian or one of its derivatives because they support apt a lot better than most rpm based distros since its their native package management tool.
As for packages not being updated often, you will find that most ditros won't make major upgrades once they have released a stable version of their distro. They usually just concentrate on security updates. This is true if you use Mandriva, Suse, Debian, Ubuntu etc. Also you have to remember that not all distros will contain every opensource package that you may want to use. The best thing to do if you can't find the package that you want is to contact the distro maintainer or third party packagers and ask them to build a binary package for their distro. Its not guaranteed that they will build the package but its worth trying. You can obviously compile the packages from source as well. |
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
|
I more-or-less solved my problem by buying Mandriva 2006 LE. The repositories are now much more up to date and things are installing more smoothly. URPMI works as it should. I still prefer Synaptic, though, even over RPMdrake, because of the general GUI design of Synaptic.
Thanks for all the help, though! |
The only way that you'll really have a huge upgrade in your ability to install up to date or slightly more obscure software is to use a debian unstable branch based distro. A good example is Mepis. Personally, I'm mainly a Mandriva user, but Mepis is my second choice (and it's the first one I'd recommend to a new user). Anyway, the debian unstable branch has much more up to date software and probably the largest package database any single distro has access to, something like 25000 packages using the default repositories and spending maybe 10-15 minutes looking for a couple more major ones to add. It uses Synaptic and works well with it since the distro is SUPPOSED to use apt-get. The packages in the debian unstable branch are also usually MORE stable than Mandriva rpms no matter what the name says (debian's truly unstable packages are all in the testing branch).
For Mandriva, the main thing you can do is add extra unofficial rpm repositories like thac's sources or search around rpm.pbone.net to find packages that only official members get or packages that are in the cooker or devel. I've also had problems with trying to find more up to date software, but it just requires more time in Mandriva than in some other distros. |
It doesn't really take a long time to find the latest software for Mandriva, justy add the cooker repos to your urpmi sources and thats it. The only problem is that when there is intense develpment going on, occassionally some things may break. This shouldn't be a problem if you only use a few packages from cooker.
|
Quote:
1) rpmdrake has no option to save selections. 2) Selecting an entire group - a very good feature! - causes rpmdrake to hang. 3) About one out of ten packages can't be marked because of dependencies 4) gpg-keys are always wrong - luckily I can choose to ignore that 5) Selected packages are downloaded, but installation stops because of even more dependencies. I installed both versions via ftp, (ftp.sunet.se - Mandrakes own suggestion) and added only plf-free and non-free (ftp://plf.time4t.net/pub/plf/mandrake/free/10.2). (Actually, the first thing I did was to remove the "updates" since it blocked everything.) What I want is a system for me and my kids, meaning: almost every game there is, every dvd/video/tv-app you could think of, everything that's nice for kids age 3 and up.. (that includes me! :-) This results in approximately 3-5 GB of software (in Mepis 5.5 GB - took three days to select, one night to install - thank lord I could save the selections!) urpmi might be usable when you just want one program, but when you want more it's useless. I completely agree with Jiawen: Quote:
Well, that's the complaints. Now to the problem-solving: I installed synaptic (using urpmi), in 2006 it doesn't function but in 2005 it works. But there aren't that many Mandrake-repos out there, and I'm definitely not going to try other repos. Actually, mandrake's repos do have most of the apps I want so what I really would want is a way to use these urpmi-repos in apt! I know I might be a bit crazy, but if there only is a way to make apt read a hdlist-file instead of 'packages.gz'? |
If you're getting dependency errors then its because of the repositories you've setup, not because urpmi is broken. If you only added the PLF-free and non-free repos then no wonder you get dependency errors - go and get main and contrib from http://easyurpmi.zarb.org. Also urpmi is no more 'command-line' than apt. Synaptic is a GUI frontend to apt, RPMdrake is a GUI frontend to urpmi.
If you want help w/ it post you /etc/urpmi/urpmi.cfg |
Sorry, I wasn't quite clear about repos: Since I installed via ftp the main & contrib were already setup.
I also tried removing all repos and adding all from easyurpmi.zarb.org, same result. Tried another mirror as well, no difference. Urpmi simply doesn't handle dependencies very well - installing one application works, but trying to install lots always results in errors ( meaning nothing is installed, urpmi doesn't only skip packages with errors but everything). That's why I want to use apt, it handles dependencies very well, and if there's a problem with one package at least the problem-free are installed. But I guess it's impossible to make apt read urpmi-repos, maybe I'll use apt to start with and try to get the rest with urpmi. It will take time of course, but I like Mandrake - I simply don't feel at home with Debian. And as requested, here's my urpmi.cfg: Code:
Main\ (ftp1) ftp://ftp.sunet.se//pub/Linux/distri...86//media/main { The other mirror tried was ftp://ftp.song.fi/ |
Quote:
My personal take on this is that you guys are not really experienced with troubleshooting urpmi (no offence intended) and this is causing your frustration. What I suggest you do is remove all your urpmi sources and start from scratch. To remove all the sources do, Code:
#urpmi.removemedia -a Code:
#urpmi.update -a Code:
#urpmi --auto-select --auto |
Well, reddazz, I'm glad it works for you - maybe because you mainly use commandline?
I have the same experience - installing one or two apps from commandline works (that's how I installed apt: urpmi synaptic) but selecting 500MB or more in rpmdrake simply doesn't work. You suggest me to remove all urpmi sources and start from scratch - well I've done that already! At least twice in both 2005 & 2006, using easyurpmi. And updated the sources several times. |
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 08:51 PM. |