"Check Dependencies Installed Pkg" misreporting missing dependencies

[KevinTheGerbil]

Hi all,

I'm currently running Bionicpup64 8.0 with standard kernel 4.19.23 and have noticed the following gnarly little problem:

Recently, when I run "Check Dependencies Installed Pkg" from the Setup submenu, it lists a whole load of apparently missing library dependencies - about 80 of them in total, including a load of libc6 and libqt5 core libraries - with some listed more than once in the "missing" list (e.g. libc6 is listed no less than 7 times, libgcc1 and libglib2.0 are each listed a couple of times, etc).

These missing dependencies didn't show up the last time I did this, around a week or two ago. AFAIK I've done nothing in the interim that could obviously cause this problem.

The Puppy Package Manager is still reporting all of these packages as installed (although I'm not entirely sure how much that can be relied upon). Also, everything that relies on these dependencies still seems to be working. Some of the dependencies I think (although not 100% certain) may even be part of the devx SFS, which I've checked is also correctly loaded (it's been loaded ever since I first installed the system, with no apparent issues until now).

Just wondering whether any file(s) that the dependency checker relies on might have got corrupted or deleted recently - any ideas anyone? Currently I have little idea of where to start with this.

- Kevin

[bigpup]

First you need to be using Bionicpup64 8.0 with all of the updates and bug fixes.
These are bug fixes and improvements that are not in the release Bionicpup64 8.0 ISO.

After making a save so added changes can be saved and used.
Booted using the save.

After getting internet connection.

On the desktop should be an icon for Quickpet.

Run Quickpet ->Info ->Bionicpup updates

After it downloads and installs all of the updates.

Reboot, making sure the save is updated, so these changes are now being used.

May not help with what you are asking, but Bionicpup64 will work a lot better.

...................................................................................................................................

Check Dependencies Installed Pkg is suppose to check for packages you have installed.
Mainly to see if something needed did not get installed.
give you a quick list of what is needed for a specific added program.

Most likely, some of this being reported, is more about the version of the dependency stuff, and not so much about it really being missing.

Bionicpup64 8.0 is 5 years old.
It does have some older versions of dependency stuff.

Also, everything that relies on these dependencies still seems to be working.

If programs you have installed are working.
As they say:
If it is not broken, do not try to fix it!

Most likely the program is coded to use older versions of dependency stuff, if the newer versions are not there.
But it is coded to use newer versions instead, if they are there to use. The newer versions will be reported as needed dependencies.

Puppy Linux does updates, by offering a newer version of Puppy, with all the newest stuff, available at time of release.

Welcome to Linux software!

[KevinTheGerbil]

Thanks for that bigpup. I probably should have mentioned that the Bionicpup updates had already been applied through Quickpet so all was/is as "up-to-date" (!) as it can be.

I agree that "if it ain't broke don't fix it" applies - but having said that I do use the dependency checker quite a bit when I'm installing stuff and having all this extraneous "missing" stuff in the list rendered it almost impossible to use, hence my query.

I found some "petget" files in /var/packages which appear to contain the info that the dependency checker is using - by way of an experiment I deleted those files and then ran the dependency checker again to see if they would get regenerated. That turned out to be the case, and it also got rid of (most of) the massive list of missing dependencies leaving only 4 items listed rather than 80 or so.

So this unexpectedly positive result makes things usable again, but whether I've broken anything else by doing this remains to be seen. Anyway I do keep regular backups of my savefile so I can always backtrack if I manage to break things irrevocably....

- Kevin

[mikeslr]

Ubuntu Bionic Beaver reached End of Life on May 31, 2023, at which time Ubuntu archived its repositories that Bionicpup used. I'd recommend an upgrade to F96 or Bookworm if your computer can handle them. But I still have my remastered version of Bionicpup64 on my boot-menu. Since Verizon went to 5G my wifi is spotty but Bionicpup (lighter on resources?) can sometimes obtain adequate access when newer Pups can't.
If you're interested I updated Bionicpup64 on the eve of Beaver's EOL. You'll find it here: viewtopic.php?p=90666#p90666

[KevinTheGerbil]

Interesting, Mike. I tried writing that iso image to a USB stick using a couple of different utilities (Unetbootin, usb-creator-gtk), but no go - my system simply won't recognise it as a bootable USB (very odd, especially as every other iso I've flashed to USB has given me no issues). Guess I could try balenaEtcher or something like that (but I tend to steer clear of balenaEtcher as it has its own issues, such as continually hijacking .html extensions because it thinks it wants to be the default browser, etc...)

I guess I'll try manually copying all the files across to my existing boot disk and go from there. Anyway thanks for the link.

- Kevin

[KevinTheGerbil]

UPDATE: So the same USB stick that won't boot at all on my old Toshiba C640 boots fine on my other machine (HP Elitebook 8470p). So a BIOS issue, presumably.

However the 6-series kernel included in the Bionic respin seems to be a no-go - quite a lot of things don't seem to work properly, or at all - e.g. CPU frequency scaling tool just hangs when you invoke it. "Best" kernel found so far for my 8470p machine (which, it has to be said, is more-than-usually-finicky in terms of which kernels/firmware it'll play nicely with) seems to be 6.0.12-FP from Puppy F96-CE - that's what I've recently been running with my original Bionicpup64 8.0 installtion, with very few problems. OTOH the stock Bionicpup64 4.19.23 kernel works very well with the Toshiba, although it doesn't have IPv6 support which means I lose access to a couple of IPv6-only websites that I use reasonably regularly.

Anyhoo, I might experiment with a new install of the Bionic respin using the 6.0.12 kernel. Another rabbit-hole to explore...thanks Mike! But I guess this is the "beauty" of Puppy especially with frugal installs - the ability to experiment and find out stuff like this whilst still being able to recover your system relatively easily if things go completely pear-shaped

- Kevin

[mikeslr]

Just checked my own deployment of Bionicpup64-revival on my desktop. For reasons I don't recall, it's now using the 6.2.9-64oz-ao-PRE kernel that Ozsouth has since 'superceded'.