Enabling Apt

From DSL Wiki

NOTE: If you need apt-specific help, go to the Debian website and read their documentation, as it is not covered here!

DSL is based on Debian, so it is possible to use apt-get after a hard drive install once the dpkg database is restored.

To restore Apt, open the menu and go Apps >> Tools >> Enable Apt

Or, if you are in runlevel 2 (console mode) type 

       sudo dpkg-restore

Or, you can grab the dsl-dpkg.dsl from the MyDSL Repository and install it using the directions in 3.1 of this Documentation.

Or, in the new 3.2 version... go to a command prompt and type 

      rxvt -rv -T "DSL Apt and Dpkg Restore" -e sudo dpkg-restore

After this you should type 

      apt-get update

This will get the latest package list.

However you get it, once dpkg has been restored, you need to bring it up to date.

Before you do that, though, you might want to choose a different area of debian, such as "stable", "testing", or "unstable". Though this is not required.

To edit the apt config file, type 

       sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

and change the line 

       deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ oldstable main non-free contrib

to something like 

       deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main non-free contrib

Then, open a root xterm and type 

       apt-get update

After the process is finished, you have the ability to grab most anything from Debian!

Now for the warning:

DSL is not derived purely from Debian, if you 'apt-get install' the wrong application you may break something, for instance, the X servers. You may have trouble if you try to upgrade your whole DSL distro to debian (apt-get upgrade)! Another caveat is that some of the dsl binaries use BusyBox multi call binary (instead of separate binaries for find, ls etc). It causes problems when used in some of the scripts inside certain debian packages, for example xpdf. Use apt to grab individual packages, but only the expert should try major system upgrades.

Another Note: if you plan to use the system for development it could help you to install from source some packages. Coreutils, gzip will replace the Busybox binary. You can get those from gnu.org and compile them. You may also consider to compile and install the latest perl version. Overall it works pretty well but some things may be broken here and there.

[edit]

Mirror Down

As of Sun 7 Aug 2011, the ibiblio mirror is down, and attempting to install packages with the dpkg-restore script fails. Good news everyone! The mirror path is kept in a hidden opt file and can be changed with a text editor 

       nano /opt/.dslrc

Change this entry on line 1 

       Mirror: www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/damnsmall/

and replace it with the path to a working mirror like so: 

       Mirror: www.ftp.be/packages/damnsmalllinux/

And continue your regularly scheduled instructions.

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