Re: [rdiff-backup-users] debian packages again

[Claus Herwig]

Hi,

> I have apt-getted the debian source for rdiff-backup on woody which of
> course gives me the 0.6
> I am after 0.10 packages for woody and my feeble attempts to build packages
> according to the intructions provided here previously have given me a
> package that relys on libc6 in unstable not woody.
> Is there a reason rdiff-backup needs the newer version of libc6?

I faced the same problems with rdiff-backup on potato and with another 
special package (libpam-pgsql) I needed on woody.

As far as I know this has nothing to do with the real needs of 
rdiff-backup. Almost all packages in debian unstable tree have 
dependencies to the unstable version of other packages - even if in 
reality they need just "any" version.

I don't know why the debian folks do it this way. IMHO this makes it 
unnecessaryly difficult to have a mixed system baseing on stable with 
one or two unstable packages.

Workaround: Manually get the package from ftp.debian.org. Then install 
it with dpkg -i using some --force... and --ignore-depends... parameters.

After that you will face some problems using dselect. It will try to 
resolve the "broken" dependencies every time. Putting the packages "on 
hold" didn't work for me. So I know just one way around this: Look for 
the file /var/lib/dpkg/status and edit the "Depends:" line for the 
package you forced to install.

There is a file called "statoverride" in the same directory, which 
sounds as if it can manage this in a more elegant way. But I don't know 
what to write in there.

Any hints for doing this without brute force would be appreciated ;-)

Errr, needless to say: the rdiff-backup/unstable package is probably 
built with this unstable libc6 version. If you use it with the stable 
libc6 don't complain if it won't run. However I'm quite sure it will.

Greets,
  Claus