Re: a few Qs about debian's apt

• Previous message: Mike Fedyk: "Re: Searching for an editor..."
• In reply to: Woon Wai Keen _at_ doubleukay.com: "a few Qs about debian's apt"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 15:23:38 -0500

"Woon Wai Keen @ doubleukay.com" <doubleukay@doubleukay.com> writes:

> a friend of mine has some questions regarding debian. hope you guys could
> help me answer them :)

I notice you're asking a lot of questions about apt-get. It often can
be a little difficult to figure out what apt-get is doing; a
higher-level package manager, such as aptitude, can often be more
informative.

> 1) does 'apt-get upgrade' upgrades:
> i) the kernel,
> ii) base apps
> iii) local apps (/usr/local)

(i) Only in very limited ways, for certain minor updates, but often
not within a particular kernel revision, and never between kernel
versions. (ii) Yes, always "base apps", however you define those.
(iii) No, Debian packages always leave /usr/local untouched (with the
exception of possibly creating empty directories for user extension
packages).

> 2) where does apt-get saves all it package information?

In a combination of /var/lib/dpkg (used by dpkg), /var/cache/apt (for
downloaded packages), and /var/lib/apt. But you should (almost) never
need to look at these directories directly.

> 3) is there a way to just upgrade the local apps instead of all
> local/kernel/base at the same time? if so what is the apt-get
> argument?

APT and dpkg never touch things the administrator has installed in
/usr/local, or things users have compiled in their home directories.
In other words, it never "upgrades the local apps", as I understand
your terminology.

> 4) what do we do if we need to synchronize the package information
> manually, say for some reason apt-get fails to include version
> information on newly installed package; it's still using the old
> version although the package has been overwritten by the latest
> version?

Um, what do you mean by "overwritten by the latest version"? Why do
you think a newer version is installed than what APT or dpkg think is
installed?

> how do debian define non-base apps? in the bsds, non-base apps which is
> called local apps are those not part of the vendor-approved base
> distribution.

Aah. Debian doesn't have that distinction. Everything that's "part
of Debian" and included on the official CD is built to install in
/usr. Some packages are flagged "essential" or "section: base", but
these are mostly artificial distinctions that have minor importance in
the packaging system.

> getting back to debian, say for an application that is not part of
> debian base distribution, how do we go about getting apt-get to
> upgrade them, or does debian does not segregate the definitions of
> base/local apps?

If something's not on any of the Debian CDs, it might be in a newer
version of Debian ("testing" or "unstable"), or there might be
unofficial packages of it. Otherwise, you get to compile it from
source, and APT will have nothing to do with it.

-- 
David Maze         dmaze@debian.org      http://people.debian.org/~dmaze/
"Theoretical politics is interesting.  Politicking should be illegal."
	-- Abra Mitchell
-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-request@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

• Previous message: Mike Fedyk: "Re: Searching for an editor..."
• In reply to: Woon Wai Keen _at_ doubleukay.com: "a few Qs about debian's apt"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]