[Wylug-help] Debian help needed

[Smylers]

Anne Wilson writes:

> On Sunday 06 April 2008 17:56:04 Smylers wrote:
> 
> > What command did you run that gave the above error message?
> >
> The version of synaptic that comes with EeePC.  (Isn't it confusing
> having a software manager and a touchpad manager with the same name?)

Yes -- though I think one of them is "Synaptics" with an "s" at the end.

> On Sunday 06 April 2008 18:50:24 Richard Ibbotson wrote:
> 
> > > > > Attempting to download the two packages together with their
> > > > > dictionaries brings me
> > > > > 'E: Unable to parse package file /var/lib/dpkg/status(2)
> > > > > E: Unable to lock the download directory'
> >
> > ps ax | grep apt
> > ps ax | grep synaptic
> >
> > Kill whichever process is running.
> 
> I was trying to get the files via synaptic.

I don't have much experience with Synaptic, but since this is a locking
problem it does make sense to make sure nothing else package-managementy
is running before you try to do anything.

> Apart from a single week-long experiment I've only every used rpm
> distros, so I'm far from at home in xandros.

I've never used Xandros, but presuming it's sufficiently like Debian I'd
recommend using bare command-line tools for this -- that way you have
full control over exactly what's been run and can see precisely which
command is generating which error message (and then can post them here
if you don't understand).

Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and make sure it includes the repository URLs
you were given.

Then try doing:

  $ sudo apt-get install aspell ispell

> If I download packages from http://tinyurl.com/5s7suu and
> http://tinyurl.com/5mnguw is there a way to do a local install?

If you have a local .deb file then you may be able to install it with
something like:

  $ sudo dpkg -i ispell_3.1.20.0-4.3_i386.deb

However that will only work if all of that packages' dependencies are
already installed; apt-get would pull in all the dependencies for you,
so it's better to try that first.

Smylers