Steps to install dselect

[jerramy]

Not that dpkg is better than AppBrowser (at least for TCL), and it certainly has its pitfalls, but seeing as how there are a HUGE number of debian packages, I thought it would be worth while to try to get dpkg (and ultimately dselect, apt, aptitude, or synaptic) installed.  I've managed to get dselect up and running by doing the following.  

roberts has already stated he has no plans to create a dselect package which I competely understand.  The little bit where update-rc.d is required (but is it modifying the correct start script?) could imply that things will break or be unstable.  It also requires you to update .filetool.lst every time you add debian packages which takes some of the fun out of it. The alternative of just adding every top level directory (except dev and mnt) is equally crumby, for different reasons.


1. Install Tiny Core Linux (for me to a virtual harddrive in VirtualPC2007).
2. Using AppBrowser, install coreutils.
3. Using AppBrowser, install dpkg-deb.
4. Using AppBrowser, install perl5.

5. Open terminal and type sudo su to make it a root terminal.
6. mkdir ~/install, and cd into it.
7. Add root/install to /opt/.filetool.lst

8.  wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/f/file-rc/file-rc_0.8.11_all.deb
9.  wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/l/lzma/lzma_4.43-14_i386.deb
10. wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/d/dpkg/dpkg_1.14.29_i386.deb
11. wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/n/ncurses/libncursesw5_5.7+20081213-1_i386.deb
12. wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/d/dpkg/dselect_1.14.29_i386.deb
13. wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/d/dpkg-ftp/dpkg-ftp_1.6.12_all.deb

14. mkdir file-rc
15. mkdir dpkg

16. dpkg-deb -X lzma*.deb /

17. dpkg-deb -X file-rc*.deb file-rc
18. cp file-rc/usr/sbin/* /usr/sbin
  Note: extracting directly to / would probably screw up TCL.

19. dpkg-deb -e dpkg*deb dpkg
20. dpkg-deb -X dpkg*deb /
21. ./dpkg/postinst configure

22. add to /var/lib/dpkg/status:
  Package: libc6
  Status: install ok installed
  Version: 2.11.1

  Package: coreutils
  Status: install ok installed
  Version: 8.5

  Package: lzma
  Status: install ok installed
  Version: 4.43-14

  Package: libgcc1
  Status: install ok installed
  Version: 1:4.1.1

  Package: libstdc++6
  Status: install ok installed
  Version: 4.4.4

  Package: perl
  Status: install ok installed
  Version: 5.10.1

  Package: libnet-perl
  Status: install ok installed
  Version: 1

23. dpkg --clear-avail
24. dpkg -i dpkg*.deb
  Note: funny thing, installing itself, which logically shouldn't do anything special,
  it will make the dpkg/status look nice.  
  dpkg will generate "serious warnings" about packages with no files installed.  
  I'm currently ingoring these, though I'm open to ideas for how to prevent them.

25. dpkg -i libncursesw*.deb
26. dpkg -i dselect*.deb
27. dpkg -i dpkg-ftp*.deb

28. Add to /opt/.filetool.lst for above .deb packages:
  /var/lib/dpkg
  /sbin/start-stop-daemon
  /usr
  /etc/logrotate.d/dpkg
  /etc/dpkg
  /etc/alternatives
  /var/log/dpkg.log
  lib/libncursesw.so.5.7
  lib/libticw.so.5.7
  lib/libncursesw.so.5
  lib/libticw.so.5

[jerramy]

A question:  How do I make files persist and be at various places in the directory structure (and be unloaded from memory when all handles are closed), without them being pre-loaded in memory?