Synaptic caprices

[Peter Garrett]

On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 23:44:28 +1000
"Alan E. Davis" <lngndvs at gmail.com> wrote:

> 1. Distribution Preferences:
> 
> Trying to configure preferences ifor synaptic, several choices are offered,
> as follows:
> 
> Settings -> Preferences -> Distribution
> 
> The following caveat is displayed:
> 
> " These settings afffect the core of your system. Consider any changes
> carefully."
> 
> What do I need to know, when faced with these choices, under "Prefer
> versions from:"
> 
> breezy-security
> breezy-updates
> breezy
> 
> 2. Persistently, a whole lot of package lists are being retrieved,
> apparently over and over again, each time I try to install packages. Over a
> dial up line, this is uncomfortable to say the least.
> 
> 3. Packages that clearly were visible yesterday in synaptic are not visible
> today.
> 
> 
> I am not getting it about how to set up the repositories. I would use some
> instructions on how to reinstall synaptic and apt-get, I think, and get the
> repositories worked out correctly. I just messed up (as I write) the system
> by running a hoary script to install restricted formats. I'll probably have
> to take drastic action. Not too drastic, I hope.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Alan Davis
> Just getting acquainted w/ Ubuntu.

Alan,

Sounds like you jumped in at the deep end ;-)
If you are running Breezy you have the "bleeding-edge" preview development version of Ubuntu, which is being heavily updated and de-bugged for release on or about October 13.

I would suggest you might consider installing 5.04 ("Hoary"). Even then, on dialup you will find there will be a lot of security updates, and thus many Megabytes of downloading to bring the system up to date. Once done though, the updates will be less often and generally not as large.

The alternative would be to wait until the official release of Breezy in October.

Peter

-- 

Linux User #343161