apt-get/Synaptic problem(s)

[A2JC4life]

A little bit of background ... I have been using computers since DOS, and have progressed through Win 3.x, 95, and 98. (Dh has XP, but I don't mess with it much because I don't like it.) I am pretty new to Linux, though. I had ELX 1.0 for a while, puttered around in it a bit, and had fairly well learned my way around the desktop, but I was having a freaky problem with my dial-up connection which I was told might be my kernel crashing, so I went looking for something else.

So...I have just installed ALT Linux Jr. 2.2. It is heavily based on Mandrake and it uses apt-get with the Synaptic GUI. I am running the KDE desktop (2.3.?, I think). My problem is this: Synaptic may be great if the package you want is in the list, but the one I need is not. I have a softmodem with a Conexant chip, which requires a special driver from Linuxant. I HAVE the driver on my HDD, so that part isn't a problem. What IS a problem is that I can't install the darned thing. I want to install a specific package from a specific location on my HDD and, as best I can tell, Synaptic is just not set up to do that. But, even if the package I need is part of some repository somewhere, I can't install it because I can't download anything; I can't get online without this modem driver I can't install.

Unlike ELX, which automatically recognizes an .rpm when you select it, and runs Kpackage to install it, ALT has no idea what to do with an .rpm. So how do I install this driver? (There are a number of other packages I'd like to install, too, all of which are either on my HDD or on the secondary disk which came with my distro, and none of which are in the repository list.) Surely I'm missing something.

[bigrigdriver]

When you install via apt or Synaptic, the downloaded files are placed in /var/cache/apt/archives prior to installing.

You could try moving the files you want to install into the archives directory, then try apt install.

Or, you could try editing the /etc/apt/sources.list to add the path to the file, and see if apt finds it there.

[A2JC4life]

I finally found some information about adding a local repository (by adding the path to the sources.list file like you mentioned), but I couldn't get it to work. (Probably I'm doing something wrong.)

I also tried manually installing the file from a terminal, using both apt-get and rpm, but got the following error(s):

error: cannot get exclusive lock on /var/lib/rpm/Packages
error: cannot open Packages index using db3 - (-1)
error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm

I will try putting them in the archives directory and see if that helps.

[bigrigdriver]

Are you trying to install as user or as root?

If installing as user, you can only go so far without root priviledges. Finishing the installation requires root priviledge to finish the process.

When installing from command-line (terminal), su to root first, then try to install.

Do the errors repeat when installing as root?

[jfz]

My current main distro (PCLinuxOS) is also based around apt4rpm; on the rare occasion I've needed to install something not in the repository, KPackage has done the trick. My first suggestion would be to try and install KPackage (if it's available from the ALT repositories), and point it at your driver RPM. Failing that, it should still be possible to install from the command line using:

rpm -Uvh packagename

...although doing this from /var/lib/rpm is probably not the best location. Either way, it would still be necessary (as root) to use modprobe to actually load the driver, once the package is installed.

It may also turn out that this (presumably Red Hat/Fedora) RPM simply won't work with your distro. If that's the case, you'll have to a) change distros, or b) upgrade to a serial modem, which should Just Work.

[A2JC4life]

I can't install Kpackage or anything else, as I can't get online to download the packages from the repositories.

I honestly can't remember whether I tried the apt-get and rpm commands the first time as user or root. I think I tried both, but I can't remember.

I did, last night, try moving the files into /var/cache/apt/archives and running those commands (as root). When I ran apt-get, I thought at first it was going to work. It said it was reading package lists, collecting file provides, and building dependency trees. Then it said "couldn't find package". When I ran rpm, it said, "failed dependencies; gcc is needed". I don't know what gcc is.

I *do* know that my distro automatically installed a similar modem driver from the same company; it just isn't the right one for my modem. (Arrrggghhh. This "proprietary software" garbage is why I'm trying to leave MS in the first place. Unfortunately, I cannot afford a new modem.)

What are the -u and -h for? (I'm still learning the command line. The instructions I had said to use -i for "install," so I'm not familiar with those commands. The -v means it tells you what it's doing, right?)

[jfz]

D'oh! Sorry about the brain cramp. Although, if the rpm command is giving you a "gcc is needed" message, it sounds like this may be a source package (SRPM). At any rate, gcc is the GNU C/C++ compiler. You may be able to install it from the install media, otherwise you're back to the same catch-22 again.

The other rpm switches are: 'U' for upgrade or install, and 'h' for hash marks (to indicate progress -- purely optional).