Re: N900, first casualty: need doctor
 

Tried to search and cannot find any. Worth a try but I guess it would be WONTFIXed as 'not supported on device, use package manager to upgrade'.
Not sure, will you disable rm command too? rm is also quite dangerous. And sometimes there may be use for apt-get dist-upgrade if you know what you are doing.

Re: N900, first casualty: need doctor
 

In the downloaded ubuntu I had running it wasn´t there, and that is really besides the point. The point being that 34 installation files needed to be run, which is rediculous.

That´s about as many as I need to run on my laptop to completely reinstall windows and all drivers and most used software.

Re: N900, first casualty: need doctor
 

By installer files do you mean .deb packages? If so you're importing your unfortunate experience of Windows' broken installation model, and finding that it doesn't work. If you want to install something, just ask the package manager and let it do all the work - you don't have to go ferreting around the net for 'installers' yourself.

Re: N900, first casualty: need doctor
 

Then you were either not running Ubuntu or some ancient, unsupported version. It is even in Main in Ubuntu Dapper Drake 6.06LTS (more than 3 years old).

There is no need to 'run 34 installation files'. It'll just download the .deb files for you and install those. Nothing more, nothing less. A child can do that, its simple point and click. Although it should be installed by default already!

Re: N900, first casualty: need doctor
 

Since he said it's a VM I suspect he may have a somewhat stripped out appliance type setup rather than a full standard install.

Re: N900, first casualty: need doctor
 

Possible, but then it isn't Ubuntu; it is something else. Prime example of why trademarks are important :) and indeed, I don't see VMs listed here as download option. Could also be possible he had Kubuntu or something which probably comes with KDE's office program, KOffice.

Re: N900, first casualty: need doctor
 

apt-get dist-upgrade brakes down because

1) there is a libffi5 upgrade in maemo extras
2) there is a explicit depency on specific libffi5 version in the "tag-all" metapackage (mp-fremantle-generic-pr)
3) apt-get dist-upgrade decides to pull out mp-fremantle-generic-pr in favour or installing new libffi5
4) apt-get notices that a big bunch of packages can now be removed as only mp-fremantle-generic-pr depended on them

I think apt is being buggy at step #4, there should be no reason to remove those packages. Still, some protections should be set:

1) mark essential packages essential (duh) and apt won't remove them
2) maemo extras should refuse packages that are already included in the image...

Re: N900, first casualty: need doctor
 

rm is potentially dangerous in the wrong hands, why not remove that too?
Sharp tools have fantastic uses in the right hands, but can still chop your fingers off.


He may mean ubuntu server, where it is not installed by default. That said, it can still be installed by specifying a single Openoffice.org (I think) page to apt-get or by downloading the dependencies and letting dpkg sort them out.

Re: N900, first casualty: need doctor
 

OK, let me ask the question a different way: does apt-get dist-upgrade have any useful purpose in Maemo?

Re: N900, first casualty: need doctor
 

There is a difference between something that's known to be destructive working as designed, and something that's supposed to be safe but then misbehaves.

Anyway, it seems that the core of the problem is a package in extras that tries to upgrade a core package in an entirely broken manner. If that's all it is then that package simply needs nuking - it's buggy. Equally the process that allowed it to get in there in the first place could probably use some attention.

In some respects it's lucky this happened this way; it seems that the reason that apt-get upgrade and the GUI package manager don't install this update is because of the large and destructive side effects caused by the dependency information. If someone were to drop a package into extras that would cleanly upgrade a core package without needing to uninstall anything it sounds like it would simply get installed. As a matter of policy, should it really be possible to override core packages from extras at all?

Re: N900, first casualty: need doctor
 

For joe Average end-user? Nope.

For someone developing /tweaking/hacking at the core system? Quite possibly. I can't predict everyone's needs.

Re: N900, first casualty: need doctor
 

There's no reason it shouldn't. apt-get upgrade will not, as a general rule, install stuff that needs new packages (apt-get install <package> will install any new packages required by <packages> though, if you use that command to upgrade an already installed package). apt-get dist-upgrade is for this. Ideally apt-get dist-upgrade should have done what the SSU tried to do.

However, apt-get dist-upgrade hasn't worked properly on any internet tablet due to repository configurations [or rather, the packages therein and their dependencies], it's nothing wrong with the command itself. But due to how repos are set up an apt-get dist-upgrade tends to install things you don't want (maybe, for example, packages meant for a scratchbox development enviornment) and remove packages you want to keep.