Item8013: Debian installer does not install dependencies

The Debian system does not install dependencies.

For example, if you install BlogPlugin

extranet:~# apt-get install twiki-blogplugin
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  twiki-blogplugin
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 1129kB of archives.
After unpacking 0B of additional disk space will be used.
WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated!
  twiki-blogplugin
Install these packages without verification [y/N]? y
Get:1 http://distributedinformation.com experimental/main twiki-blogplugin 060901-1053 [1129kB]
Fetched 1129kB in 1s (693kB/s)            
Selecting previously deselected package twiki-blogplugin.
(Reading database ... 19144 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking twiki-blogplugin (from .../twiki-blogplugin_060901-1053_all.deb) ...
Setting up twiki-blogplugin (060901-1053)

But, according to http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/BlogPlugin, the system needs:

TWiki::Plugins::AliasPlugin   >=1.2   Required; download from TWiki:Plugins/AliasPlugin
TWiki::Plugins::DBCachePlugin   >=1.20   Required; download from TWiki:Plugins/DBCachePlugin
TWiki::Plugins::ExtendedSelectPlugin   >=1.10   Required; download from TWiki:Plugins/ExtendedSelectPlugin
TWiki::Plugins::FilterPlugin   >=0.94   Required; download from TWiki:Plugins/FilterPlugin
TWiki::Plugins::GluePlugin   >=1.5   Required; download from TWiki:Plugins/GluePlugin
TWiki::Plugins::HeadlinesPlugin   >=1.91   Required; download from TWiki:Plugins/HeadlinesPlugin
TWiki::Plugins::IfDefinedPlugin   >0.93   Required; download from TWiki:Plugins/IfDefinedPlugin
TWiki::Plugins::RedDotPlugin   >=1.35   Required; download from TWiki:Plugins/RedDotPlugin
TWiki::Plugins::SpreadSheetPlugin   >=1.001   Required; download from TWiki:Plugins/SpreadSheetPlugin
TWiki::Plugins::TagCloudPlugin   >=0.20   Required; download from TWiki:Plugins/TagCloudPlugin
TWiki::Plugins::TimeSincePlugin   >=0.99   Required; download from TWiki:Plugins/TimeSincePlugin
TWiki::Plugins::TwistyPlugin      Required; download from TWiki:Plugins/TwistyPlugin
TWiki::Plugins::UserInfoPlugin   >=1.5   Optional; download from TWiki:Plugins/UserInfoPlugin

But the Debian system doesn't presently install these.

It's not that the package doesn't have the dependencies expressed:

MartinCleaversMBP:BlogPlugin martincleaver$ cd lib/TWiki/Plugins/BlogPlugin
MartinCleaversMBP:BlogPlugin martincleaver$ ls
Core.pm      DEPENDENCIES   Factory.pm   MANIFEST   WebDB.pm   build.pl
MartinCleaversMBP:BlogPlugin martincleaver$ more DEPENDENCIES 
TWiki::Plugins,>=1.1,perl,TWiki Dakar release.
TWiki::Plugins::AliasPlugin,>=1.2,perl,Required; download from TWiki:Plugins/AliasPlugin 
TWiki::Plugins::DBCachePlugin,>=1.20,perl,Required; download from TWiki:Plugins/DBCachePlugin 
TWiki::Plugins::ExtendedSelectPlugin,>=1.10,perl,Required; download from TWiki:Plugins/ExtendedSelectPlugin
 
TWiki::Plugins::FilterPlugin,>=0.94,perl,Required; download from TWiki:Plugins/FilterPlugin 

Installing the dependencies would be nice to have.

--

Workaround.

Copy the above list into a file on the server, and use a shell transform to get the list you want:

cat a | cut -d' ' -f1 | sed 's/::Plugins::/-/' | tr 'A-Z' 'a-z'

Outputs:

twiki-aliasplugin
twiki-dbcacheplugin
twiki-extendedselectplugin
twiki-filterplugin
twiki-glueplugin
twiki-headlinesplugin
twiki-ifdefinedplugin
twiki-reddotplugin
twiki-spreadsheetplugin
twiki-tagcloudplugin
twiki-timesinceplugin
twiki-twistyplugin
twiki-userinfoplugin

Trying this:

extranet:~# cat a | cut -d' ' -f1 | sed 's/::Plugins::/-/' | tr 'A-Z' 'a-z' | xargs apt-get install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  twiki-dbcacheplugin: Depends: twiki-dbcachecontrib but it is not installable
  twiki-headlinesplugin: Depends: liblwp-useragent-determined-perl but it is not installable
  twiki-twistyplugin: Depends: twiki-dojotoolkitcontrib but it is not installable
E: Broken packages

MartinCleaver. 21 Nov 2008

seems to me like you have a broken system. I'm activly using the dependancies on the packages.

sven@quad:/data/home/sven/src/wikiring/projects/TWiki/TWikiInstaller/EPM/output-Debian$ dpkg -I twiki-blogplugin-081208-1066-Debian.deb 
 new debian package, version 2.0.
 size 1121098 bytes: control archive= 447 bytes.
       0 bytes,     0 lines      conffiles            
     619 bytes,     9 lines      control              
 Package: twiki-blogplugin
 Version: 081208-1066
 Maintainer: SvenDowideit@fosiki.com
 Architecture: all
 Description: TWiki Package: BlogPlugin
  Copyright: 2008 by TWikiContributors. Installer by Sven Dowideit - SvenDowideit@fosiki.com
  TWiki Package: BlogPlugin
 Depends: twiki, twiki-aliasplugin, twiki-dbcacheplugin, twiki-extendedselectplugin, twiki-filterplugin, twiki-glueplugin, twiki-headlinesplugin, twiki-ifdefinedplugin, twiki-reddotplugin, twiki-spreadsheetplugin, twiki-tagcloudplugin, twiki-timesinceplugin, twiki-twistyplugin, twiki-userinfoplugin, twiki-natskin, twiki-imageplugin
 Provides: twiki-blogplugin

looks like a proper list of DEPs to me.

-- SvenDowideit - 12 Dec 2008