[Wylug-help] Debian help needed

[Anne Wilson]

On Sunday 06 April 2008 22:05:32 Smylers wrote:
> 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.
>
OK, I'll try it again in the morning.  However, I think that I have checked 
the dependencies, so if it fails I'll try for the localinstall.

Thanks for the help

Anne

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