aptitude + dpkg

On Sun, Apr 29, 2007 at 12:26:38AM +0100, somethin2cool wrote:
> Given that aptitude is awesome and that all the stuff I want is missing
> from all the repositories, is there anyway for me to use .deb files and
> dpkg in conjunction with aptitude. I'm sure they have the dependencies
> listed inside them somewhere, and it would be brilliant. I'd settle for
> apt of course.

Do you mean that you have a deb file that is not part of a repository
you can tell apt about that you want to use?

Apt gets the dependancy information from the packages file that gets
made when the repository gets made.

You can install the deb with dpkg but without prior documentation you
won't know about dependencies until during the install if debconf
requires one or after. If the install goes well, you can use aptitude
(I always use it interactivly) to then tell you about that package.
Under aptitude it will show up as Obsolete or Locally Installed.

Good luck,

Doug.

--

On Sun, Apr 29, 2007 at 12:26:38AM +0100, somethin2cool wrote:
> Given that aptitude is awesome and that all the stuff I want is missing
> from all the repositories, is there anyway for me to use .deb files and
> dpkg in conjunction with aptitude. I'm sure they have the dependencies
> listed inside them somewhere, and it would be brilliant. I'd settle for
> apt of course.
>
if someone make a deb packages that does not have any dependencies, then
you use dpkg to install it. Otherwise they would need to create their
own repository that contains all the things apt-get/aptitude expects.
You would add a 'deb' or 'deb-src' line and go from there. But many
software projects provide one of these options. So you should have no
problem. But is the software that you need not in Debian because of no
one asking for its inclusion or becuase there is some reason that it
could never be included. If it can be included, see if the project would
like to add it. This would solve your issue.
-K
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On Sun, Apr 29, 2007 at 12:26:38AM +0100, somethin2cool was heard to say:
> Given that aptitude is awesome and that all the stuff I want is missing
> from all the repositories, is there anyway for me to use .deb files and
> dpkg in conjunction with aptitude. I'm sure they have the dependencies
> listed inside them somewhere, and it would be brilliant. I'd settle for
> apt of course.

Hi,

If you want to use .deb files with apt tools, your best bet is to
build a local repository. Stick them in a directory, chdir to that
directory, and run "apt-ftparchive packages . > Packages". Then put the line
"deb file:///path/to/debs ./" in your sources.list and run
"aptitude update".

For instance, to put them in /home/somethin2cool/packages, you'd do

$ cd /home/something2cool/packages
$ cp (...)/*.deb .
$ apt-ftparchive packages . > Packages
$ echo "deb file:///home/something2cool/packages ./" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
$ aptitude update

If you don't want to do that, your second-best option is to install a
.deb by hand, then see if apt(itude) can resolve its dependencies from
your apt sources (run, e.g., "aptitude install -f" to try and fix the
dependencies of currently installed debs). If it can't, you might need
to install some more dependencies by hand.

Daniel

--

On Sun, Apr 29, 2007 at 12:26:38AM +0100, somethin2cool wrote:
> Given that aptitude is awesome and that all the stuff I want is missing
> from all the repositories, is there anyway for me to use .deb files and
> dpkg in conjunction with aptitude. I'm sure they have the dependencies
> listed inside them somewhere, and it would be brilliant. I'd settle for
> apt of course.

As others have mentioned, setting up a local repository is a good
option.

But for one-off packages, dpkg will do just fine. Basically, RTFM
dpkg(1):
$ man dpkg
:-)

But you're probably after:
$ dpkg --info somefile.deb
will list information about the package - including what it depends on.

# dpkg --install somefile.deb
will install the package. If dependencies are not satisfied, the package
will be installed, but not configured (usually unusable). It will be up
to you to install dependencies - this is what apt normally does for you.

Hope this helps
--
Karl E. Jorgensen
http://www.jorgensen.org.uk/
http://karl.jorgensen.com
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