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Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help

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On Fri, Jul 28, 2017 at 12:04:54PM -0400, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> 
> The concern is that you may have used some shared library to compile a
> third-party program which is installed in /usr/local or /opt, or anywhere
> else that's outside of Debian's knowledge.  Debian would not know that
> the library is still being used, and therefore might autoremove it.
> 
> The impact of this is directly proportional to how many things you
> compile yourself, and how important those things are to you.
> 
If you compiled a program yourself, you probably know what its runtime 
dependencies are. Just create a dummy debian package with the right 
dependencies (this is a simple two-step task with the "equivs" package 
installed). Install that package using dpkg -i <package file name> and 
now Debian knows you don't want those libraries removed. And then you 
can safely use apt autoremove to keep your system clean.

I'd emphasise that using equivs is *NOT* a big ton of work -- you can 
very quickly throw together a dummy package even with a decent sized 
list of dependencies, and decent instructions are only a google away...

One thing you might trip over -- when you come to install the dummy 
package representing your self-built software, if any of the 
dependencies are not already installed, dpkg -i will fail. Use the -f 
option to force it to install anyway, then follow up with apt install 
--fix-broken or aptitude install or whatever to get it to fix the broken 
dependencies (by installing the missing dependencies, and recognising 
they are required for the dummy package you installed representing your 
self-built software).

Later, probably *much* later, you might get upgrade problems where the 
system wants to upgrade those libraries but can't because of the 
dependcies from your dummy package. The response to that should probably 
be to recognise that the self-built software may need re-building 
against the upgraded libraries, to do which you would remove the dummy 
package, let the upgrade happen, rebuild the self-built package, and 
then use equivs again to make a new dummy package. The kind of scenario 
I have in mind here is one where library upgrades change library package 
names -- I seem to recall fun a while back with with gnome libraries 
around the time of the upgrade from Gnome 2 to Gnome 3 (Wheezy to 
Jessie? Or was it earlier?) that had to do with this. The symptom was an 
attempt to upgrade wanting to remove half the system... At the time I 
wasn't much of a ninja with apt dependencies, but once I figured out the 
cause, the solution in that case was just marking libraries as 
auto-installed that were marked as non-auto and which nothing depended 
on. That is a different problem but produces a very similar effect to a 
dummy package depending on libraries whose package names change with an 
upgrade.

I suspect you, Greg, already know a lot of this, but nonetheless 
hopefully this will be useful for the archives.

Mark

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Need to upgrade to jessie need help VigneshDhanraj G <vigneshdhanraj.g@gmail.com> - 2017-07-25 08:40 +0200
  Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Dejan Jocic <jodejka@gmail.com> - 2017-07-25 09:50 +0200
    Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help VigneshDhanraj G <vigneshdhanraj.g@gmail.com> - 2017-07-25 09:50 +0200
    Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2017-07-25 14:00 +0200
      Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Dejan Jocic <jodejka@gmail.com> - 2017-07-25 15:00 +0200
        Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Cindy-Sue Causey <butterflybytes@gmail.com> - 2017-07-25 15:30 +0200
          Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Dejan Jocic <jodejka@gmail.com> - 2017-07-25 15:40 +0200
            Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Cindy-Sue Causey <butterflybytes@gmail.com> - 2017-07-25 16:00 +0200
              Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Dejan Jocic <jodejka@gmail.com> - 2017-07-25 16:10 +0200
              Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2017-07-25 16:10 +0200
                Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Dejan Jocic <jodejka@gmail.com> - 2017-07-25 16:20 +0200
                Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2017-07-27 17:50 +0200
                Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Dejan Jocic <jodejka@gmail.com> - 2017-07-28 17:50 +0200
                Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2017-07-28 18:10 +0200
                Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Dejan Jocic <jodejka@gmail.com> - 2017-07-28 18:20 +0200
                Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Mark Fletcher <mark27q1@gmail.com> - 2017-07-29 17:30 +0200
                Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2017-07-25 20:50 +0200
                Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2017-07-25 21:00 +0200
                Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2017-07-26 02:40 +0200
  Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Georgi Naplatanov <gosho@oles.biz> - 2017-07-25 10:30 +0200
  Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Patrick Bartek <nemommxiv@gmail.com> - 2017-07-25 16:10 +0200
    Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2017-07-25 21:10 +0200
      Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Patrick Bartek <nemommxiv@gmail.com> - 2017-07-26 01:20 +0200
        Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2017-07-26 01:30 +0200
          Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Patrick Bartek <nemommxiv@gmail.com> - 2017-07-26 06:00 +0200
            Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2017-07-27 18:50 +0200
          Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2017-07-26 14:30 +0200
            Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2017-07-26 15:10 +0200
  Re: Need to upgrade to jessie need help David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> - 2017-07-26 02:30 +0200

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