Spoofing package status.
Hi,
This is not strictly a testing question, but it does have implications
for testing so I thought this might be the best place to ask.
When I build a system, there are some packages that I do not wish to
use - preferring to compile and build them myself (I often start off
with an absolutely minimum system, e.g. base, admin -emacs :-# +vim +
enough other stuff to get me to a root prompt).
One of the packages I like build myself is Exim. Now Exim (or any MTA)
is pretty much a fundamental part of the system so dpkg (rightly) forces
you to install the version supplied with the distribution, which with
the current stable distribution is 3.12 which is quite old.
No problem you say, the testing and unstable versions are far more
recent. Yes they are but they are relatively difficult to install using
dpkg because they depend on quite a few newer packages that also have to
be installed.
If I want to just install Exim, it is relatively easy to go to exim.org,
get the latest stable tarball, do a configure and make and install the
system. (This doesn't just apply to Exim, it also applies to Apache,
PHP, bind etc.)
If I want to remove Exim before I install my version, I find that I
can't do it easily because of the dependencies. Even using dpkg --force
etc. doesn't quite do what I want. If I do not install the supplied
version of Exim at system build time, it won't let me install stuff like
at and cron because they depend on an MTA.
If you've read this far you're doing well :-)
What I would like to do is to be able to let dselect / dpkg THINK that
what is installed is the version that it expects, quite possibly by
editing /var/lib/dpkg/status if necessary. This is a requirement simply
because with a lot of stuff, dselect/dpkg _THINKS_ the installation is
broken when in reality it is not, it just doesn't have the bits that
dpkg/dselect thinks it should have.
I have been through the man pages and can't find anything (the closest
seems to be dpkg-divert), does anybody have any further pointers ?
Regards,
Dave Restall
mail/debian/testing-2001-11-19.tx debian-testing
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Dave Restall, IIRC Limited, PO Box 46, Skelton, Cleveland, TS12 2GT. |
| Tel. +44 (0) 1287 653003 Mob. +44 (0) 7973 831245 Fax. +44 (0) 1287 652546 |
| email : dave@iirc.net dave@restall.net Web : http://www.iirc.net |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Sorry. Nice try. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Reply to: