apt for Mandrake

[Doogee]

or not

[Calum]

Calum, maybe you could send him an e-mail.
I mean, it seems he gets quite some respect and consideration in the Mandrake community and I came accross a post of his where he actually asks for some feedback on how his apt port works for Mandrake.
Perhaps if you explained your problem he could provide you with some answers or tips?

His e-mail : texstar-at-houston.rr.com

i will indeed when i have time.
doogee, i think you should add your concerns too.

[Doogee]

ok im emailing him right now

[Ice9]

Cool, I'd really be interested to know if he comes up with a solution to the problem.
It'd be really great to get apt-rpm working well for Mandrake too.

[Calum]

Just to keep you updated, i wrote the following in an email to texstar:

Subject: Re: apt for mandrake

> On Sunday 26 January 2003 11:38 am, you wrote:
> > hello,
> > I and a few of my friends recently installed apt and
synaptic for mandrake,
> > having heard how good these programs work on red hat. The
only versions we
> > could find for mandrake were the ones from your site, which
come with your
> > repositories in the /etc/sources.list file. you can find
our discussion
> > about it all at http://voidmain.kicks-ass.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=25
> >
> > anyway the reason i'm writing to you is that we noticed a
few problems,
> > which i have noticed do not occur on the red hat version,
and i think the
> > problem is related to the mandrake repositories available.
> >
> > Updating a small program such as tar or gftp will require
huge downloads of
> > 40MB or so just to satisfy dependencies and i once humoured
the program and
> > ended up with a broken kde install with no kde-network and
half my firewall
> > stuff uninstalled and i couldn't even start XWindows!
> >
> > The problem seems to be the 'tex' style rpms compared with
normal 'mdk'
> > rpms. The two formats are not properly compatible. What if
i want to keep
> > gfcc and kde 3.0 but upgrade other stuff? it seems not to
be doable.
> >
> > So i just wondered if you might have some sort of solution
for making the
> > repositories more compatible with a normal mandrake system.
are there other
> > repositories available for instance? Or have i perhaps
missed something
> > that i should have noticed?
> >
> > Thanks and best wishes,
> > Calum...............

to which texstar promptly and helpfully replied as follows:

> I'm not sure what you are doing but my apt is a direct port from
apt that
> redhat people use except for the sources list which points to my
mandrake
> repository. The repository contains a complete list of mandrake
9.0 rpms plus
> texstar updates as well as mandrake security updates. I dont
know of any
> other compatiable repositories which work with on Mandrake.
>
> How are you attempting to install these rpms? I just run apt-get
update as
> root which connects to my server and gets the latest package
lists. If I want
> to update libpng3 I just type apt-get install libpng3 which apt
told me that
> 3 packages will be upgraded. I use the synaptic program which
shows me what
> rpms are upgradable and then I can manually select which ones I
want to
> install or update.
>
> # 1. Download apt rpm and install it
> # 2. Download synaptic rpm and install it.
> # 3. Connect to the internet
> # 4. Open a terminal console
> # 5. su to root (type su press enter key - enter root password
press enter
> key)
> # 6. type apt-get update while connected to the internet (you
only have to do
> this once)
> # 7. close the terminal window
> # 8. Run synaptic from the mandrake menu (Configuration ->
Packaging)
>
>
>
> Buttons
>
> # Update - This does the same thing as apt-get update. It
updates the file
> lists from the ftp server
> # Fix Broken - This scans your installed rpms and looks for
broken
> dependencies
> # Upgrade - This will automatically select all rpms that are
upgradable - use
> with caution!
> # Dist Upgrade - Dont use this button - Its for upgrading from
say 9.0 to 9.1
> # Proceed - This will commit the rpm selections & download or
remove software.
> # Options - Various Configuration Options
> # Repositories - This is to add or remove additional apt rpm
repositories.

i replied:

Hi again,
thanks for your reply and taking the time to give me detailed
instructions, it's most appreciated.
As far as i can see, though, I'm doing exactly what you suggest.

What it boils down to is that the 'tex' style packages don't seem
100% compatible with the 'mdk' packages. What i mean is that i'd like
to have a sources.list file that points only to mandrake type rpms,
but the default one seems to point to 'tex' type packages as well,
which don't seem to entirely like being installed along with mandrake
stuff. For the record I'm using mandrake 9.0 download edition from
about a week after it first came out, and i've only installed about a
third of the software that came with it. I'll continue to use apt for
mandrake as it's much better than the mandrake system update in my
opinion, and I'm definitely grateful that you're supplying the
repositories, but i wonder if there is some way to get it to only use
mandrake rpms from the repository?

I have had one disastrous experience where i had to update the whole
kdebase plus dependencies simply to update something like ftp or tar,
i think it might have been, and once bitten, twice shy as they say. I
have noticed in the synaptic interface that some of my packages show
up as broken too, which i know to be totally incorrect as i have not
uninstalled a single thing since i installed mandrake. i know the
mandrake installer satisfies dependencies, therefore there should be
no broken dependencies.

I put this down to the tex rpms not being 100% compatible with the
mdk rpms i have installed already, in the same way that i get a lot
of unresolved dependencies when i try to install red hat rpms. For
example, i often am told by rpm that i need to install bzip2 and
libc6 when trying to install a red hat rpm, of course both of these
are installed, but not in the locations the red hat rpm expects (due
to it really being mandrake).

Anyway, i've dribbled on about this for long enough i am sure, what
are your thoughts on editing the sources.list file to point only to
mandrake rpms and mandrake updates?
Thanks and best wishes,
Calum...........

and am now waiting by my inbox.

[Doogee]

i hope he gets this working

[Doogee]

The correct command is

apt-get install gaim

It is not apt-get upgrade gaim... apt-get will read it as
apt-get upgrade and leave off the gaim which tell apt-get to upgrade all
available rpms.

The repository will be closing Feb 5th anyway as I wont be releasing any more
rpms after that date.


On Saturday 25 January 2003 07:38 pm, you wrote:
> Hi.
>
> It seems there are problems with your APT Repository for Mandrake.
>
> For example to upgrade "GAIM" an instant messenger it was a whopping forty
> sometihng maegabytes i would have to download. i can tell you now i can
> download this program from sourceforge in under 5 or 6 megs.
>
> Also upgrading other things the package wants to remove core parts of the
> system.
>
> Other people i know have also been experiancing these kind of problems with
> your repository.
>
>
> Please try to fix this, you Repository is basically the only one for
> mandrake.
>
> Thanks.
>
> -Dan



Thats my little saga, note he is closing down Feb 5th oh well


Note: apt-get install gaim wanted to remove kde-multimedia

[Calum]

well whatever. thanks for nothing then, i say.

i suppose it's back to using the mandrake system updater (hah!) - except i think i might move to lycoris. mandrake has been my best linux experience so far, but i know there must be better.

[Nobber]

Calum, if you're used to Mandrake, I doubt you'd ever be happy with Lycoris. No GNOME, no development tools by default, and lots of other bits missing - the point being not to confuse the new user with too many choices. At least, that's what it was like when I tried it. Fine for newbies, frustrating for the experienced user.

If you want better than Mandrake, try Debian. It takes more effort to set up, but once it's done it's a work of art. And then there's the little bonus of apt-get being native...

[Ice9]

Guys, how about making a mandrake repository ourselves and getting it hosted by someone from the boards?
I don't know if that would be do-able, I made some rpm's from tarballs myself but I don't know what it would take to maintain a complete system database for a distro?
We could start with downloading all the packages from Texstar's.
Anyway, this is just an idea ....

[Void Main]

I don't believe that creating a repository is all that difficult. The big problem is finding a place to host it that will donate their bandwidth and server resources. A good repository will require massive bandwidth and massive bandwidth ain't cheap. Of course this would indeed be awesome if such a donor could be found. I don't know how freshrpms.net does it. Maybe someone could start a correspondence with Matthias Saou who's contact information is listed here.

I foresee apt becoming very popular for non Debian distros (as it is becoming right now for Red Hat). If it doesn't, it should. The one thing that is missing on the non-Debian apt is configuration options after doing an "apt-get install package". Also the number of applications found in apt repositories are small compared to what Debian has available. I am very pleased with what is there now though and I see all good applications ending up in the repositories and any app that's any app will strive to get in there. It's a great management system.

[Calum]

what's really needed is a CVS/source code version of apt, where you can put all the options to give to configure when you install et cetera. I like the idea of a distro independent package manager that allows the full flexibility of source code but resolves all the dependencies and has all the databas stuff that rpm has.