[Ubuntu 8.10] Need help getting out of odd update manager loop

[H.S.]

David Karr wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 3:33 PM, Scott Abbey <scott at eotr.net> wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 6:21 PM, David Karr <davidmichaelkarr at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 3:05 PM, H.S. <hs.samix at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Which exact repo did you add? Right after you added this repo and
>>>> checked for upgrades and installed the above two packages, were these
>>>> the only packages that were needed to be upgraded/installed?
>>> Ah! I didn't pay attention to this right after it, but now I see that the
>>> new repo is the key to this.
>>>
>>> The repo URI was "http://http.us.debian.org/debian".
>> Be very careful adding repos to your system. Debian's repos are *not*
>> compatible with Ubuntu, generally speaking. Key libraries are at
>> different versions and can cause major havoc to an Ubuntu system. It
>> appears you've lucked out this time, but for future reference, don't
>> just add any old repo to your sources. My personal suggestion, for
>> simplicity's sake, is to stick to the official Ubuntu repos and the
>> occasional launchpad.net PPA. If you absolutely must have a package
>> that can't be installed from one of those two, you can try downloading
>> *just the package* from Debian.
>>
> 
> In this case, I was only using it to install an Emacs lisp package. In the
> future, if I have to do that again, I'll enable the repo, install just that
> package, and disable the repo.  If it's for anything else, I'll keep it away
> from update manager.

One can do this very systematically such that you can add the repo and
it will be checked only for that package. You need to look at apt
documentation for that. This is a relatively more common thing in Debian
where can be running, say, Debian Testing and using Nvidia package from
Debian Unstable. The key is the /etc/apt/preferences file and I think
you need to look at apt pinning and also the "-t" option of aptitude (or
apt-get). All this, of course, if you want to go down this path. Not
sure how this works in Ubuntu though (mixing Hardy, Interpid, Juanty, or
even Debian); works wonderfully in Debian.

Take a look at this:
http://debian-book-bg.openfmi.net/queue/apt-pinning.html

Trust me, the dpkg from Debian is one of the best package managers I
have ever seen. And it is quite flexible while robust. No wonder
Canonical chose Debian to base Ubuntu on. :)


> 
>>> Any reason not to proceed with the flash plugin update at this point?
>> You should be ok now that you've disable the Debian repo. Go ahead and
>> delete that repo entirely to avoid future snafus.
>>
> 
> I think I'm ok with leaving it there, but unchecked, if I have to install
> any other Emacs lisp packages again.  I'll never forget the impact of it
> now. :)

Here is what I do in such special cases. I add the repo and then use the
terminal to do the updates.
to update:
$> sudo aptitude update

then do a simulated update:
$> sudo aptitude -sV safe-update

where "s" tells to simulate only and "V" tell to show version.

If I want to install a package <package>, then
$> sudo aptitude -s install <package>

In short, use "-s" switch to see what will happen. It shows all the
details of what will or will not happen without actually doing anything.


Regards.



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