installing from remote sources?

[kareila]

Please pardon the newbie question, but I must be missing something obvious!

I tried out my first Ubuntu install a couple of days ago; all my previous UNIX experience has been with LinuxPPC, which used RPM, and NetBSD, which used the BSD package management system.

My understanding of apt-get was that you could type "sudo apt-get install <package>" and it would go out, find the most recent version of the package from its list of sources, and install it for you along with any dependencies (like what CPAN does with Perl modules). But every time I try it, I get some sort of error about the package being missing or obsolete. (The package I was trying to install was emacs, which I'm confident is neither.)

I know it's doing something right, though, because when I type 'emacs' at a prompt it tells me I can use apt-get to install it, instead of just saying command not found.

Is my apt-get syntax correct? Do I need to configure a list of valid sources? Or am I doomed to manually download .deb files and install them manually, same as with .rpm?

Comments

[zvi]

You should double-check that your repositories are set up correctly. I'm working on Xubuntu and have done something very, very bizarre to my menus, or I would offer more help than the relevant man page, but I think that should at least let you see if anything super bizarre is going on.

P.S. that is to say, I don't see anything wrong with your apt syntax. You could try using the gui synaptic, or you can use aptitude which is a command-line program which will allow you to do search. (man aptitude) (Sorry, again, to RTM at you, but I rarely use aptitude.)

[yvi]

did you do an "apt-get update" first? Also, what does "apt-cache search emacs" say?

[kareila]

Okay, it found 69 updates to my installed packages, but I'm still not seeing anything for new packages.

The apt-cache search returned something like 200 results, so the data describing available packages is there - it just doesn't know where to find any of them, maybe?

[yvi]

Hmmm, directly after an "apt-get update", "sudo apt-get install emacs" should work if it finds a package named 'emacs'...

Try "apt-get clean", then "apt-get update" and then "apt-get install emacs". Might be a problem with the cache.

[kareila]

I rebooted and now the uninstalled packages are listed. Whew!

Thanks for your help!

[baggyeyes]

Perhaps...you haven't the right repository enabled?

I'm foggy on what they have them named as.

[draigwen]

I'm not going to try to answer your question, but I've got an alternative suggestion. You should have Synaptic installed (it's under the Administration menu if you haven't found it yet). It's a GUI for apt and has a search - so I'd recommend going in there and searching for emacs.

[kareila]

The search in Synaptic is only returning results for already installed packages.

[draigwen]

That's very odd. Check the left column - it should have an 'All' option and an 'Installed' option. There's also a 'Not Installed' option. Click on either All or Not Installed before doing the search, see if that works?

I've definitely got emacs on mine and it has the Ubuntu symbol by it which suggests it should be in the standard repository.

[draigwen]

If that doesn't help, it might be helpful to see the contents of /etc/apt/sources.list

(I'm not an expert in this, by the way, so I'm not promising I can help any, but I can but try!)

[kareila]

The solution that worked for me was to apt-get update and then reboot. Now everything is showing up.

Thanks for your help!

[draigwen]

No worries. Glad you got it sorted!