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Re: Installing old/deprecated packages

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riveravaldez writes:

> I have this `phwmon.py`[1] which I use with fluxbox to have a couple
> of system monitors at hand. It depends on some python2 packages, so
> stopped working some time ago.

Any specific reason for preferring `phwmon.py` over a tool like `conky`?

> I've just made it work, installing manually (# apt-get install packages.deb)
> this packages that I've downloaded from Debian OldStable official archives:
>
> python-psutil
> python-is-python2 (this is in fact in Testing)
> python-numpy
> python-pkg-resources
> python-cairo
> libffi6
> python-gobject-2
> python-gtk2
>
> Therefore, my questions:
>
> How safe is this?

IMHO it's pretty OK because that is quite similar to having upgraded from an  
old system with the legacy packages installed to a new release where they  
are no longer part of.

> Is it better to install them as I did, or adding the corresponding line in
> sources.list and pull them from there? Is there any difference?

There are differences: Whenever you install packages, you may not notice  
that they are only avaliable in old releases because the output of
`apt-cache search` and similar tools will include old packages. Also,  
running a release with stable+oldstable in sources.list is less common than  
the other case: stable in sources.list and some oldstable packages leftover  
from upgrades. In case bugs are fixed in the oldstable package, you will get  
them automatically if you have them in sources.list.

My personal choice would be to install the packages without adding the  
oldstable repositories as to be reminded that they are obsolete and are  
likely to stop working in the future.

Be aware that libraries like `python-psutil` may not work with newer  
kernels. Here (on oldstable with a backported kernel 5.10) the script would  
not run due to excess fields reported by the kernel for disk statistics:

| $ ./phwmon.py 
| Traceback (most recent call last):
|   File "./phwmon.py", line 341, in <module>
|     HardwareMonitor()
|   File "./phwmon.py", line 128, in __init__
|     self.initDiskIo()
|   File "./phwmon.py", line 274, in initDiskIo
|     v = psutil.disk_io_counters(perdisk=False)
|   File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/psutil/__init__.py", line 2131, in disk_io_counters
|     rawdict = _psplatform.disk_io_counters(**kwargs)
|   File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/psutil/_pslinux.py", line 1121, in disk_io_counters
|     for entry in gen:
|   File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/psutil/_pslinux.py", line 1094, in read_procfs
|     raise ValueError("not sure how to interpret line %r" % line)
| ValueError: not sure how to interpret line ' 259       0 nvme0n1 42428 17299 3905792 8439 49354 7425 3352623 15456 0 48512 26929 43429 11 476835656 3033 0 0\n'

See also: https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=967

[...]

> [1] https://gitlab.com/o9000/phwmon

Btw. it looks as if `python-is-python2` is not needed for this to run?  
`phwmon.py` states `python2` explicitly.

HTH
Linux-Fan

öö

PS: If you are interested in my thoughts on status bars, see here:
    https://masysma.lima-city.de/32/i3bar.xhtml

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Installing old/deprecated packages riveravaldez <riveravaldezmail@gmail.com> - 2021-09-05 05:20 +0200
  Re: Installing old/deprecated packages Linux-Fan <Ma_Sys.ma@web.de> - 2021-09-05 14:50 +0200
    Re: Installing old/deprecated packages riveravaldez <riveravaldezmail@gmail.com> - 2021-09-06 05:50 +0200
      Re: Installing old/deprecated packages Linux-Fan <Ma_Sys.ma@web.de> - 2021-09-06 16:10 +0200
        Re: Installing old/deprecated packages Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2021-09-12 10:30 +0200

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