some apt help....

[Steven Elling]

On Wednesday 02 July 2003 00:03, Matt Graham wrote:
> Dang.that first one was supposed to come from me.  Sorry about that.
>
> -----
>
> I'm new at debian, and new a using apt-get.
>
> So, I'm wanting to install something like php for my little webserver.
> I've been reading up on the APT-HOWTO on debian.org.  I did:
>
> apt-get update
> apt-cache search php
>
> Woa.so there are so many choices.  Not knowing what to pick, I choose
> php4.  so I run:
>
> apt-get install php4
>
> Here is the output:
>
> jack:~# apt-get install php4
> Reading Package Lists... Done
> Building Dependency Tree... Done
> The following extra packages will be installed:
>   libbz2-1.0 libmm11
> The following NEW packages will be installed:
>   libbz2-1.0 libmm11 php4
> 0 packages upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0  not upgraded.
> Need to get 597kB/632kB of archives. After unpacking 1621kB will be
> used.
> Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
> Media Change: Please insert the disc labeled 'Debian GNU/Linux 3.0
> _Woody_ - LordSutch.com MiniCD i386 Binary-1 (20020920)' in the drive
> '/cdrom/' and press enter
>
> It's asking for a cd.  What am I doing wrong there?

Nothing, except for not inserting the CD. ;-)

> PART2..
>
>
> So.trying other things.I want to wget a file from another server.
> Discovering that I'm missing wget, I do the same process as above and
> end up trying:
>
> apt-get install wget
>
> Works like a charm.  Connects to debian.uchicago.edu, installs.all is
> well.  I'm wget'n with the best of them.
>
> What's the difference?

More than likely you have the CDs defined in the sources list, as well as, 
some web sites to pull the packages from; right?  If this is the case, then 
the most recent version of php is on the CDs and apt-get is smart enough to 
say, "Hey the most recent package is available on CD so I'll get it from 
there instead of making a network connection."  --- at least that is the 
way I've seen it work when I used Debian.  If a newer package is available 
from one of the Web sites defined, apt-get will pull it from there.

> PART LAST...
>
>
> So now.a general question about apt-get.  When you think "Hey.I want to
> install mysql server. (or whatever)"  Do you usually look for
> mysql-server in apt-cache search first?  I mean.is that the first place
> you guys go?  Or is there some in-the-know command / webpage that you
> look at first.

I used dselect alot.  It should be installed by default.  It's a ncurses 
interface to apt.

> I'm loving Debian by the way.  Cool stuff.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Matt

I liked Debian too when I used it but moved onto Gentoo.  The biggest gripe 
I had about Debian is they were very slow at updating packages to the 
latest version unless you ran unstable.