Baslinux mailing list

[James Miller <jamtat AT mailsnare.net>]

On Sat, 27 Dec 2003, Day Brown wrote:

> The Corel gui desktop has 'upgrade', and when you click it, it opens up
> a little terminal window.
> but both it and apt-get get me a mess of error messages when I try to
> get the list of apps that need upgrading, and tell me of the
> dependancies I dont have. 'Upgrade' tries to go to corel.com and then
> gets linked up to debian someplace, and then,.. it looks like it runs
> into the server problems they've been having.
>
I have no idea what the "upgrade" thingy you're talking about is.  I'd
avoid it. Saying "apt-get get me a mess of error messages when I try to
get the list of apps that need upgrading" makes me think you're not using
apt-get.  How, exactly, are you trying to use apt-get to "get the list of
apps that need upgrading"?  I think you're confusing the operation of
Corel's software updater with the working of apt-get (I don't know Corel,
but what you're saying about apt-get doesn't jive with what I know about
it).  Again, there are no server problems with the package repositories.
I've used the mirrors in my sources.list file many times since the server
compromise and never ran into any problems.  Best not to try and confuse
the two, as you seem to be doing.  If anything, because you're dealing
with a distro whose commercial sponsor is now defunct (Corel), the problem
could lie in broken links related to their servers/addresses.  But again,
that's if you try to use their software updater: using apt-get with a
valid sources.list file will skirt all those sorts of problems.  I'm
pretty convinced you haven't taken that step yet.

> > I have no idea what "kannel" is,
> It appears to be a nickname for a testing release of sarge.
>
This is really confused, Day. "Sarge" is the name for the current Debian
testing release (a full release of the Debian distribution, with some
packages updated as compared to "Woody" - the current stable Debian
release).  I've never heard Sarge called "kannel."  According to a web
search I just did, kannel is a software package - an open source WAP and
SMS gateway.  If you're trying to download and install this software
package, you're far from getting your system updated using apt-get.  I
don't think downloading and installing kannel will help you update your
system in any way.  Again, I'd forget about kannel and try and update your
system with apt-get, if you're serious about updating.

> > Did you try "apt-get install kernel-image-2.4-1386" (or whatever your
> > processor's architecture is)?  You should only do this *after* issuing 
> > "apt-get
> > update" by the way.
> I think so, got a list of missing dependancies. but no clue as to how to
> get them.
>
Close only counts in horse shoes.  Either you did or you didn't.  If you
used apt-get to do so, it could have given a list of dependencies you
might need in order to install the kernel in question, but then it would
ask if it should proceed to download them along with the kernel.  From
what you're saying, this did not happen.  So, again I'm convinced that
you're not using apt-get to try and update your kernel.  Sad, because it
seems like Corel can be easily set up to use this simple and effective
software update method.

> > Maybe because you didn't do "apt-get update" yet (i.e., you don't have a 
> > current
> > package list with the 2.4.x kernel on your system)?  I'm not surprised 
> > that
> > entering a url didn't work.  Look for the file sources.list on your 
> > machine too
> > and see what mirrors are listed there.  Enter mirrors close to you
> > geographically, if they're not already there.
> apt-get update gets me 'unable to fetch file'... then a corel.com url.
> (not a debian host)

Did you look at your sources.list file?  On Debian it's under /etc/apt
(dunno about on Corel).  It needs to have Debian repositories listed in it
- you get those from the mirrors_list link I provided earlier.  Choose
repositories close to you geographically.

> > PS The above is based on the assumption that Corel operates very much like
> > Debian.  Having never used Corel, I don't know how valid this assumption 
> > really
> > is.
> It looks like it is *spozed* to. But it is the endless train of snafus
> which has me looking at the simplicity of BL.

I see lots of errors on your part, and indications of a pretty poor grasp
of how the process I'm trying to describe works.  That seems to me like
where the problem lies (your poor understanding, and thus faulty
implementation, of what I'm describing - along with a healthy dose of
confusing that process with whatever software update options the
now-defunct Corel gave you).  BL can be done in parallel with any attempt
to patch up your Corel install - assuming you intend to do a ramdisk BL,
as you've talked about to this point.

James