On 6/9/2013 10:57 AM, Brian wrote: > On Sat 08 Jun 2013 at 18:39:45 -0500, Stan Hoeppner wrote: > >> On 6/8/2013 4:43 AM, Brian wrote: >>> >>> apt/aptitude have their own idea of what packages are available and do >>> not use what is in /var/lib/dpkg/available. So you should not have any >>> problem with installing. >> >> Others mentioned this. If this is the case, why does "aptitude remove >> --purge" throw an error trying to read /var/lib/dpkg/available. This >> would suggest aptitude calls dpkg during package removal. Is this the case? > > When apt and aptitude install they use > > dpkg -i package.deb
Right. > and dpkg wants to open /var/lib/dpkg/available as it may need to write > to it to update the list of packages it knows about. The file can be > empty (making it useless to dselect and 'dpkg --print-avail') but is has > to exist for a package to install. > > Removing a package involves > > dpkg -r package_name > > My understanding is that dpkg does not need to open the available file > in this case, so I cannot understand why your aptitude command does not > complete successfully. Apparently it does need to open it. Or, at least, it 'wants' to. >>> You could forget about /var/lib/dpkg/available and carry on as you >>> usually do. Alternatively, if it bothers you, either install dselect >>> and do >>> >>> dselect update >>> >>> or download a Packages.gz file and execute >>> >>> dpkg --update-avail Packages >> >> I strictly use "aptitude" for package management. But it appears >> aptitude is not entirely standalone. Or, is aptitude simply attempting >> to keep all of the package lists up to date across the other package >> management tools? > > /var/lib/dpkg/available is mainly of use to dselect. apt and aptitude > maintain their own separate, independent package lists in /var/lib. It > was incorrect of me to say 'apt-get update' or 'aptitude update' would > rebuild /var/lib/dpkg/available. Confirmed, they don't rebuild it. However, I installed a single package with aptitude, and the package info was written into /var/lib/dpkg/available Aptitude doesn't appear to need this file, but it calls dpkg for actual installation and removal of packages. And dpkg apparently does need to access this file. Thankfully I got it working, and can add/remove packages. That's the important part. I couldn't upgrade this box to Wheezy with this being broken. Just need to get some other things straightened out before the upgrade. -- Stan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
