SAM Linux Desktop - Community Forums

Synaptic Upgrade problems (SAM 2007)...

Hi all,

Sorry this is long. Many questions. Trying to prevent 'need more info' replies, though I will gladly provide additional info. Also trying to be thorough to help others coming behind me with similar issues.

Trying to be considerate of the language barrier, as well as the time delay in getting direct help through the forum, I am searching past fixes and trying to understand the issues. I want to learn how to help myself, without distracting developers from further work on new SAM features. Please forgive my blundering...
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Having problems executing first Synaptic update of SAM '07. I've updated my sources.list file per another post on this forum (sorry, don't have that link). Here's what happens:

< Selections I click - Synaptic responds - Error msgs - I hope the color is less confusing! >

1. Synaptic/ Settings/ Repositories/ choose -only- [http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/texstar/pclinuxos/apt/] with Distribution [pclinuxos/2007] and Section(s) [extra main nonfree sam]. Click OK.

2. Reload (index files download).

3. Mark All Upgrades - get error [Could not upgrade the system! Fix broken packages first.] Click OK. Edit/ Fix Broken Packages.

Status bar displays "Successfully fixed dependency problems" - click 'Broken' package subset (to verify fix), it shows [perl-SVG-Parser] in right pane, highlighted red. I don't know what this means, so I...

Click 'All' subset. Status bar displays "7811 packages listed, 1189 installed, 0 broken. 47 to install/upgrade, 146 to remove; 808 MB will be freed"

Seeing the "0 broken", I think all is now okay and proceed...

4. Click Apply - Summary dialog shows 4 ESSENTIAL packages to be removed (basesystem, initscripts, sysklogd, vixie-cron). This sounds dangerous, so I click Cancel. Click Edit/ Unmark All.

5. Settings/ Repositories/ uncheck 1st choice and choose -only- [http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/SAMlinux/] with Distribution [repo] and Section(s) [extra firefox3 main sam] <I prefer to use Firefox because Opera does not work with my webmail account>.

6. Reload (files download).

7. Status bar displays "7802 packages listed, 1189 installed, 0 broken. 0 to install/upgrade, 0 to remove"

8. Mark All Upgrades - get 'Mark additional required changes' dialog. I click Mark - get error [The following problems were found on your system: E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.] Click OK. Click Edit/ Unmark All.

9. Settings/ Repositories/ uncheck 2nd choice and choose -only- [ftp://sam.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/sam/] with Distribution [repo] and Section(s) [extra firefox3 main sam]. Click OK.

10. Reload (files download).

11. Status bar displays "7802 packages listed, 1189 installed, 1 broken. 780 to install/upgrade, 34 to remove; 349 MB will be used" I go ahead and click Edit/ Fix Broken Packages - get error [The following problems were found on your system: E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages. E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages. E: Unable to correct dependencies] Click OK. Click Edit/ Unmark All.

12. Change repository to -only- [ftp://ftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/sam/] with Distribution [repo] and Section(s) [extra firefox3 main sam]. Click OK. Click Reload (files d/l).

13. Status bar displays "7802 packages listed, 1189 installed, 0 broken. 0 to install/upgrade, 0 to remove"

14. Click Mark All Upgrades - get dialog & click Mark - get error [E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.] Click OK. Click Edit/ Unmark All.

15. With no more repositories to check, I close Synaptic and continue editing this message.


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Questions:
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Q-1. I've avoided SAM 2008 RC1 - a Release Candidate and not a full release. I'm using SAM 2007 for maximal stability, so I will know when problems arise from -my- actions, as I learn Lx. Is SAM 2007 broken for upgrades?

Q-2. Am I required to switch to SAM 2008? I realize development work is impossible to time, but is there any -approximation- when SAM 2008 might move from Release Candidate to Full Release status?

Q-3. I can reinstall SAM 2007; the install goes very fast. My goal is to -understand- each problem and -learn- what creates them. I do not learn anything from reinstalling.

Q-4. I had canceled earlier upgrade attempts after seeing error messages for 'removal of ESSENTIAL packages'. Searching the forum for solutions, I edited the sources.list file only after reading that doing so fixed similar issues for another user. I believe that post was made in May 2008, and may be inaccurate now. Am I using the wrong repositories? Where can I find current repository info without having to bother you guys?

Q-5. Looking at status bar, 1st repository (ibiblio...) shows 7811 pkgs; while 2nd, 3rd & 4th (heanet, sam.mirror & chemnitz) all show 7802 - why would this be different?

Q-6. What are 'held packages'? Is there some way to upgrade my installation -around- these 'held packages'?

Q-7. Different repositories show different numbers of files to install/upgrade, remove. Are the repositories not mirrors of each other? I'm confused about this... If they are not supposed to be synchronized, then I've definitely got a mess in my sources.list file (contents below).

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Excerpt from /etc/apt/sources.list
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I know this is a lot of questions - and I -do- apologize for that. I'm really trying to learn Lx using SAM. I -hope- someday I will be able to answer English-written questions and save SAM developers the time and aggravation of the language barrier; I must develop my knowledge and understanding today, in order to help others later.

Thanks so much, in advance,
--tb01

After posting above, I thought my inclusion of firefox3 section might cause my issues.

I returned to Gregor's post [http://sam.hipsurfer.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=22&pid=30#pid30] and copied his list of repositories - correcting the first listing with 'right-click/ Save Link Location' to obtain the full URL.

Edited sources.list and double-hashed (##) existing repository entries (might need them later?), inserting his list at top. I removed the kde section from each entry, saved the file, and retried Synaptic. I got similar error messages.

Oh well - I tried!
--tb01

Hi tb01,
take care because we have only three repos. So, ibiblio has a different number of the packages. But, it doesn't matter. Take a look to our download section (http://sam.hipsurfer.com/index.php?page=downloads) and you will see directly with your knowledge, which repo's you can use.
In another thread the answer to "what is possible to update" The answer was shown in http://sam.hipsurfer.com/forum/showthrea...79#pid2279
take a lok to it.

I looked at the URLs for download sources, and indeed, those are in my sources.list file. I still get the same errors in Synaptic.

Sorry dude, I am nowhere -near- capable of manually editing which packages to remove, upgrade or install. Outside Synaptic, I am -totally- lost.

I am not a Lx developer; I have barely gotten my feet wet and only feel truly confident downloading and burning an ISO to a LiveCD. Anything beyond that is tedious.

I understand and appreciate the constraints of such a small development team, and the limitations of the language barrier. I had hoped for (at least) a minimal level of support in my struggle to learn, and to make a rather significant contribution to SAM.

As I am trying desperately to learn and understand Lx, I find all I've learned (here) so far is that I need to be somewhere else - SAM just isn't going to work for my needs. I really like SAM, but if I can't get the help I need to learn anything about it, or to just become able to maintain it, I might as well stick with Windows. I at least understand how to get things done during the 3.7 days each month it decides to cooperate. (grin)

Of course, I'll go through every Lx distro on the planet first! Why head back into the 'belly of the beast' at this point? (grin) Surely there's a decent 'learning' distribution out there, one which is stable, well supported, and has technician-level docs concise enough for a Lx newbie...

If I ever figure how to get all that worked into a Google search, I just might find it! (smile)

Sorry, but SAM is not working out for me at all. I wish you, the rest of the development team, and SAM, the absolute best. I'll check back from time to time, I'm sure.

Good luck,
--tb01

Hi tb01,
sorry for the minor answer, but I didn't recognize your double post. I just answered the last one. Ok, we can step through your questions.

Don't worry on the rc1

Q-3. I can reinstall SAM 2007; the install goes very fast. My goal is to -understand- each problem and -learn- what creates them. I do not learn anything from reinstalling.[/code]
Go with 2008

Please keep in mind that 2007 is a rather old distro. You have to remove frozen bubble and something more.
But you can also use 2008 becuse it is also a stable release.

see below

held packages are these which you could update but you are not doing this just now.

All the SAM-repos have the same number of files in as they are synchonized. Only ibiblio has a different number. use in ibiblio only nonfree to have access to acrobat and so on.