Linux and Packages
19 April 2006Using Kpackage, the package management GUI software that comes as part of KDE is pretty straight forward. It doesn’t take much time to get the feel of it and learn how to find available packages and install them. Different from Windows, Linux installs generally display a lot of info about dependencies, which files are going to be installed, etc. At first, it can be intimidating, but after a couple of tries, it becomes routine. Knowing about and finding Kpackage is probably the biggest challenge to the new Linux user. In my setup (KDE), it’s in the System section of the main menu that is installed with KDE.
Based on a recommendation in a forum, I installed and tried Synaptic, another package manager. It’s very similar to Kpackage, but I found I like Kpackage better so uninstalled Synaptic. (I’m trying to not install a lot of extra programs and keep this Linux setup as minimal as possible.)
By looking at the documentation, one learns that both Kpackage and Synaptic are really just graphic front-ends to run APT - the Advanced Packaging Tool used to install Debian packages. APT is itself a front-end to dpkg - the base of the Debian package management system. Learn much more about these two systems at Wikipedia.
But even though the graphics package managers are available, you will probably at some point have to try your hand at some command line instructions. Some Linux distros are very good at setting up everything during the initial install and taking you directly to a graphics desktop. But, Debian is not one of those, especially if you want to keep the number of install programs to a minimum, like I do. As I mentioned in another post, after my install, I discovered the I had set up my monitor and video adapter incorrectly and I couldn’t get to a graphical desktop. The only way to fix that short of re-installng, was to use the apt and dpkg commands.
I found some info in the Debian forums about using apt and dpkg, but using one of the suggested commands (dpkg –pending –configure && dpkg –pending –remove) led to a small problem (one must be patient with Linux.)  As soon as I issued this command, the system went to a site at Berkeley and tried to download a package called Setiathome.  It couldn’t complete the download so after several minutes, I stopped the command using Ctrl-C. No big deal, I thought. But, when I tried to use Kpackage or Synaptic to install other packages, both came back with this error message -dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run ‘dpkg –configure -a’ to correct the problem. I tried to run ‘dpkg –configure -a’ but nothing happened. I was stumped until I found this forum post, which suggested using dpkg –purge Setiathome. That solved the problem for me and I was then able to use Kpackage and Synaptic again. Apparently, when I broke off the Setiathome download, dpkg had already started some of the configuration and wouldn’t let any other configuration activities proceed until Setiathome was completed. I even rebooted hoping the problem would go away.
One last point about apt & dpkg. Using the recommendations from the first forum above, I ran apt-get install localepurge deborphan. This was a useful command as it allowed me to delete around 40MB of documents that were in other languages that I would never use.
A couple of issues I haven’t resolved, but will work on later. First, I don’t have any idea why the dpkg –pending –configure && dpkg –pending –remove tried to download Setiathome and I don’t know where it would have gotten the URL to look for Setiathome. Second, in the package managers, you can select package repositories to look for packages and updates. This is an option that can be set during install and is normally set to point to the install media — DVD, CD or network. But, there are also options to check online sites. Looking through the Debian.org site I found many references to repositories, but didn’t find one that appeared to be general. Most dealt with specific programs. It’s not really a problem, however, because I’ve got two DVDs full of packages. I just need to figure out how to do an upgrade check on them. Kpackage has that option, but I don’t want to try it until I understand it a bit better since I’m afraid it may try to upgrade my entire system, including the kernel, and I’m not ready for that yet. Who knows what will happen?
Finally, I also experimented with downloading and installing a program that wasn’t in a package format. The program was Firefox. I’ll explain more about that and what new things turned up in Linux in my next post.
No comments yet