Subject: Non-existent .deb's

From: "Daniel Lynes" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 96 06:10:22 +0700

Just a thought, but I was wondering if perhaps the dselect program
could be modified to allow for it to not allow you to be able to select
.deb archives that are non-existent?  I've noticed that for the .deb
archives that I haven't downloaded, the only way I know that they're
not there, is that their names don't show up during execution of the
installation script.

Perhaps you could have a warning in the dselect windowed interface that
gives you an error if you try to install a non-existent package?

Also, in the matter of gs(?), the dselect program does not state that
X11-R6 is required to be installed; it states that svgalib can also be
used.  However, in the list of dependencies (brought up by the 'i'nfo
command, it states that X11-R6 _IS_ required.)  When installing it, it
fails, giving the reason that the Xlib library is not installed.  So,
can you use it without Xlib, and instead use svgalib?  i.e.  Do I need
to do a dpkg-deb, and force it to install, ignoring dependencies?

Thanks in advance.

---

From: Ian Jackson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 96 00:28 BST

> gives you an error if you try to install a non-existent package?

If you delete the `Packages' files, or fail to download them, dselect
will offer to scan the .deb files that are actually on your disk.

> to do a dpkg-deb, and force it to install, ignoring dependencies?

No, that won't work.  You can use dpkg --force-depends --install to
see it if you don't believe me.  Install xlib.

Ian.