have to update on a regular basis...why?

[Tom H]

On Sun, Mar 8, 2015 at 5:22 AM, Colin Law <clanlaw at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8 March 2015 at 08:58, Tom H <tomh0665 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, Mar 7, 2015 at 8:57 PM, Thufir <hawat.thufir at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Quite frequently when I go to install a package it can't be found, but
>>> just running sudo apt-get update fixes that. Why the constant need to
>>> update? It's not like the package was suddenly added.
>>
>> Either
>>
>> 1) You're running "apt-get clean" and deleting the cached list of
>> available packages
>
> I don't think apt-get clean would cause a not found message.  I
> thought it only deleted the downloaded deb files, not the knowledge of
> which files are in the archive.

You're right. I'd just woken up and was still fuzzy-brained. :)


>> 2) The package that you're installing has been updated and your cached
>> list of available packages has the incorrect version
>
> Again I would not have expected that to give a not found message.

I'm not sure about that. I can't remember at the moment what the error
message is when you try to install a package that's not in the cache
or where the cache doesn't correspond to the archive. And I just got
in to my office and can't test right now.