APT broken, adept_installer not working

[LFS-NR-3305]

Hi,
tried to install vmware-server. Downloaded rpm, started alien because I wanted to install a .dep with dpkg -i, as I have been used to do with Knoppix for years. Alien did not create a .dep package, but unpacked the rpm into the local subdirectory, creating an ./etc, ./usr and more.

Since then, apt-get gives the output "E: Das Paket vmware-server muss reinstalliert werden, ich kann aber kein Archiv dafür finden" ("Package vmware-server has to be reinstalled, but I can't find an archive").

I downloaded vmware-server once more (100MB) and did as before. Error message from apt still is the same.

There seems to be no remedy. Please help ...

TIA

[javierrivera]

Re: APT broken, adept_installer not working

Have you tried to unistall vmware server using apt-get remove or a package manager?

BTW, I have installed it from the tarball (just for checking, no real use), and it was not too dificult. Easier than alien.

Javier.

[LFS-NR-3305]

Re: APT broken, adept_installer not working

yep, apt-get remove says before removing, it must be installed but it's not there:

root@TOWER:~# apt-get remove vmware-server
"Paketlisten werden gelesen... Fertig
Abhängigkeitsbaum wird aufgebaut
Reading state information... Fertig
E: Das Paket vmware-server muss reinstalliert werden, ich kann aber kein Archiv dafür finden."

Same with any other suggestion I found in the net for repair:

"root@TOWER:/home/web/Downloads# dpkg --configure -a
root@TOWER:/home/web/Downloads# apt-get -f install
Paketlisten werden gelesen... Fertig
Abhängigkeitsbaum wird aufgebaut
Reading state information... Fertig
E: Das Paket vmware-server muss reinstalliert werden, ich kann aber kein Archiv dafür finden
root@TOWER:~# apt-get clean
root@TOWER:~# apt-get check
Paketlisten werden gelesen... Fertig
Abhängigkeitsbaum wird aufgebaut
Reading state information... Fertig
E: Das Paket vmware-server muss reinstalliert werden, ich kann aber kein Archiv
dafür finden."

[javierrivera]

Re: APT broken, adept_installer not working

What about sudo apt-get clean?

If it doesn't do nothing... is there any file on /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/ ?

Javier.

[LFS-NR-3305]

Re: APT broken, adept_installer not working

Yes, the following:

de.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_feisty_main_i18 n_Translation-de
de.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_feisty_Release. gpg
de.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_feisty_restrict ed_i18n_Translation-de
de.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_feisty_restrict ed_i18n_Translation-de.decomp
de.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_feisty_universe _i18n_Translation-de
de.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_feisty-updates_Release.gpg

They are from 9. Febr. to 12. June. Those from 12. June might come from something I entered, trying to solve the problem (I also tried apt-get clean several times, without success). I have never been interested in any of those files.

Thank you for reading my post. Problem is way too big for me. I can't make out how, for example, to delete whole apt files and start all over again (without installing Kubuntu new, but I already invested lots of hours in configuring it...). If Ifind a solution I would be very grateful :-).

Regards, Hannes

[javierrivera]

Re: APT broken, adept_installer not working

I don't know how to start again adept database without reinstalling. Really, we can say that the adept database is kubuntu itself .

If you clean it, as soon as you try to update any package it will download and reinstall everything it needs, probably reinstalling the system.

You should be able to reinstall kubuntu without loosing any setting quite easy. Just made a backup of your home dir and /etc and recover it after reinstalling. Everything should be the same for normal desktop use (don't do this on a server .

But, let's try to find and delete the problem. Can you try the following commands:

$ sudo dpkg --purge vmware-server

This should try to remove the confliting package directly.

If it doesn't work, you can try.

$ sudo find /var/lib/dpkg -name "vmware*"

This should search the dpkg database for any file called vmware.

Javier.

[penguin.ch]

Re: APT broken, adept_installer not working

http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=05/10/12/1952217 (?)

[LFS-NR-3305]

Re: APT broken, adept_installer not working

@javier: Thanks for your reply.

"find /var/lib/dpkg -name "vmware*"" exits without showing any result.

find /var/lib/dpkg -name "vmware*" I tried before. The Result is always the same:

"dpkg: Fehler beim Bearbeiten von vmware-server (--purge):
Paket ist in einem sehr schlechten inkonsistenten Zustand - Sie sollten
es erneut installieren, bevor Sie es zu entfernen versuchen.
Fehler traten auf beim Bearbeiten von:
vmware-server"

"Error while working at vmware-server (--purge):
Paket is in a very bad, inconsistent state - you should install it one more time, before you try to remove it. "

This is what I tried - to do the same again, e.g. download the vmware-server package and convert it with "alien" into a deb package. I got to the point of calling it with "alien" and the same as before happened, "alien" installed a directory tree with "etc", "lib" ... under my "Downloads" directory.

Yes, you are correct, the .deb, apt, dpkg is Debian and I chose (K)ubuntu because I believe the (K)ubuntu people will always keep the repositories actual (which was not the case with original debian in previous years). Maybe not adept, but apt seems to be quite fragile and I feel I can't invest much more time to try just to keep my tool (the computer) in a working condition.
It is not that simple to install a new system. I don't use my PC for gaming, but for making a living. Every time I have to re-install Crossover office and some Windows software which I must have (Dreamweaver, Corel Draw 7, Internet Explorer for checking the websites I sell), Sitecopy (which does not work in Kubuntu - had to find out why and installed the previously used binary), Samba networking has to be configured, CUPS is still very touchy with my two printers even if it has improved over the years (but now, from time to time it won't even find localhost if I have used "suspend to ram" in-between), TV card not working which I had used for approx. 6 years and installed in Win98 and approx. 3 Versions of Linux, my two scanners are known not to work under Linux but I need them for special purposes (Nikon LS-1000 and Canon D2400U), therefore I tried to install Windows in a virtual machine, my Treo is not recognized by either Jpilot or Kpilot with the usb cable I used with Knoppix 3.4 for years because of the USB bug in Feisty Fawn (had to find a serial cable for it), and from time to time Customer and other date get lost because every 20th or 30th time when I shutdown, Feisty Fawn will freeze because of the APIC bug and data on ext2 partitions are corrupted. Furthermore FF changes UIDs (if you had a separate /home and if you had two users, root and let him call "joe", in FF "joe" will get the UID 1000 and can not read the /home partition - and if you chown that one to UID 1000, you will not be able to boot it under the old system, so no reading of encrypted data or export of your old mails will be possible). I did not finish customer orders since I installed FF end of april and this is one of my last chances, to get it running smoothly.

I ordered from Ebay a Suse 10.2 and a windows 2000 (which I would prefer to run in a virtual box) and hope, my customers will still be there when I return to working for them and not for my computer ;-).

@UnicornRider: thank you very much :-). I will work through the article mentioned and report here what happened!

[LFS-NR-3305]

Solved: APT broken, adept_installer not working

Hey, APT is up and working!

What I did was:
a.) read the article in the link from UnicornRider
b.) in the background, call "alien" with the vmware-server rpm for the nth time.

what "alien" did was:
complain that the directory VMware-server-1.0.3 could not be created, because it's already there,
make a .deb.

"alien -d VMware-server-1.0.3-44356.i386.rpm
Warning: Skipping conversion of scripts in package VMware-server: postinst postrm preinst prerm
Warning: Use the --scripts parameter to include the scripts.
mkdir: kann Verzeichnis „VMware-server-1.0.3“ nicht anlegen: File exists
vmware-server_1.0.3-44357_i386.deb generated"

Now I do not really understand what happened. Maybe there is some switch in the VMware rpm package which causes alien to install it, instead of simply make a .deb? Maybe alien fell back to making a .deb when it found out it could not create the directories and continue in it's script?

Anyway, I installed the .deb successfully and tried out apt-get install with firefox, which this time was working without complaints (firefox files were among those which were corrupted when my machine froze because of the apic bug, and firefox would not accept any new bookmarks or changes in configuration).

Thanks for listening! Now, let me attack the other problems mentioned in previous post :-)

Regards,

Hannes

[javierrivera]

Re: APT broken, adept_installer not working

Yes, you are correct, the .deb, apt, dpkg is Debian and I chose (K)ubuntu because I believe the (K)ubuntu people will always keep the repositories actual (which was not the case with original debian in previous years). Maybe not adept, but apt seems to be quite fragile and I feel I can't invest much more time to try just to keep my tool (the computer) in a working condition.

It's not about apt, but about alien. Adept can't work without well done debs, and alien, well...

It is not that simple to install a new system.

Sure?

I don't use my PC for gaming, but for making a living. Every time I have to re-install Crossover office and some Windows software which I must have

You will need to install crossover, yes, but all the windows software will still be there when you restore your home dir. Exactly as they were, with all prefs, mods and every small modification to it's settings.

Samba networking has to be configured, CUPS is still very touchy with my two printers even

All the info is in /etc. You need to copy back the /etc/samba and /etc/cups dir, restart the services and all your config will be back.

I did not finish customer orders since I installed FF end of april and this is one of my last chances, to get it running smoothly.

You seem to hit every possible bug . You can resintall any old *ubuntu version, your most important settings (crossover, cups and samba) will carry.

I ordered from Ebay a Suse 10.2 and a windows 2000 (which I would prefer to run in a virtual box) and hope, my customers will still be there when I return to working for them and not for my computer ;-).

Suse is a nice distro, very polished and well supported. Of course it has it's share of bugs, but I don't expect that you hit all of them again .

But the package manager is quite inferior to apt. At least for my needs and tastes.

You can also carry your crossover settings to Suse, just copy the crossover dirs (two IIRC) to your Suse install after crossover installation, this could be a massive time saving. If your printers are picky with linux, maybe keeping a copy of the old /etc/cups will be handy. Samba configuration is much easier under Suse, so I don't believe that keeping the samba files will be useful.

And, of course, I'm quite loss with the real problem. Maybe some suggestion on the article could help .

Javier.

[javierrivera]

Re: APT broken, adept_installer not working

Oh!.

I should have read that notice about someone else posting in the thread...

Anyway... great .

Javier.

[LFS-NR-3305]

Re: APT broken, adept_installer not working

Thanks to both of you :-). I surely would have given up if it was not for your replies. (And I still am studying the article about apt problems from the link given). As I have a working firefox again now, I will be around now and then, maybe I can help some beginner (but I fear there will be more questions from me...).

Anyway, apt is debian and as it's working again, I am quite happy at the moment.

@javier: yes, I promised to myself never to use "alien" again. Even with vmware-server, there *is* a version with scripts for non-rpm systems.

yes, I copied my old fake-windows directories for the new installation of crossover. CorelDraw still not working even though Version 7 (and no other one) is known to work perfectly. Menus will be lost but old desktop entries can be copied to new desktop.

thanks, I was not very eager to copy *any* settings of my old cups. One of the reasons I took to installing a more modern Linux version was that printing drove me to tears or to smashing something inexpensive quite often.
I can't blame CUPS, btw. After first problems, I installed everything else, lp,lpr, you name it. But no one of them ever was able to print a page from a browser without, for example, the fonts touching each other without spaces in-between. And there must be some computer law: if you try everything, there will work nothing ;-).

Thanks for the hint with samba. I just copied the old /etc/samba (did not yet try it). Thank god I made an empty "touch" entry in the root directory of each partition, in this case

"root@TOWER:/media/sdb7# ls
(...) hier ist Knoppix 3.4 auf hdb7 (...)".

So it is easy to identify the old partitions even if they are mounted under an other distribution with other device names.

>> You seem to hit every possible bug

Confirmed ;-). I am a curious person...

Thanks again to everybody who has taken the trouble to look into my problem!

Regards,

Hannes