Question about php-sqlite and ARM Debian packages in general

[theWebalyst]

I have a B3 for evaluation and due to unrelated problems have re-imaged it with v2.2.

I have a web app I want to try out that requires php-sqlite.

Searching Debian.org reveals a php5-sqlite package for ARMEL under sid (although for some reason searching all architectures and releases using Debian's own search doesn't show this - I found it using Google!)

Anyway, I am confused about a few things - mostly because I don't understand much about Debian and how Excito make use of it and the various repositories (so any answer that sheds light on those would be particularly helpful - or a pointer to where this is all explained ).

Firstly, "apt-get install php5-sqlite" produces:

Code: Select all

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package php5-sqlite is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

I don't know what to make of that, which is why I went to debian.org. As mentioned, php-sqlite doesn't show up in their package searches, but I did find it via Google as a sid package for ARMEL.

Secondly, on the Debian ARM page (http://www.debian.org/ports/arm/) it says:

Debian fully supports a port to little-endian ARM. The ARM EABI (armel) port has been integrated in Debian and the old (arm) port is deprecated.

So I have a few questions:
1) Can I install php5-sqlite (e.g. the one referred to above, or some other) on B3 (with OS image v2.2 or 1.1?)
2) Does apt-get on my B3 (using OS image v2.2 or v1.1) search the debian repositories, or if not where, and does it search ARM or ARMEL?
3) Can I try the sid package out, and if so what is the magic incantation to install sid packages?

Thanks,

Mark
P.S. For interest the application I am wanting to try out is a WYSIWYG WordPress theme editor called (ThemeFrame) which is currently in beta.

[DanielM]

The package you are looking for in fact isn't named php-sqlite but php5-sqlite. Try an "apt-get install php5-sqlite", should work better I think.

arm isn't supported by Debian at all any more, you should be looking for the armel packages. Debian repositories are enabled by default, so just apt-get install packagename should work straight out of the box.

As for running sid packages, I don't think it's generally a good idea, although maybe it might work.

/Daniel

[theWebalyst]

Thanks for responding Daniel. I did in fact try to install php5-sqlite (php-sqlite is my typo) and the error shown in my post relates to that - if you read it in detail. Sorry for the confusion, I omitted the 5 by mistake elsewhere in the two earlier refs (now corrected).

Thanks for clarifying about ARM and ARMEL.

My questions remain:

1) Can I install php5-sqlite (e.g. the one referred to above, or some other) on B3 (with OS image v2.2 or 1.1?) [if so, how]
2) Does apt-get on my B3 (using OS image v2.2 or v1.1) search the debian repositories, or if not where, and does it search ARM or ARMEL [Daniel's answer implies ARMEL]?
3) Can I try the sid package out, and if so what is the magic incantation to install sid packages?

Mark

[DanielM]

I pretty much think I answered all of the questions already, but I'll take them again, this time with numbers

1. "apt-get install php5-sqlite" should be working. Just to try it out, I installed it. No problems here. So something has to be broken in your system. Have you changed anything in your sources.list?

2. Yes, the normal Debian repositories are enabled on B3 per default, so it is just to install anything in Debian using apt-get. But there IS no ARM in Squeeze, so there is no choice between ARM and ARMEL.

3. Installing sid packages in a Squeeze system generally is a bad idea. It might work if you're lucky but it also might break things. Do it at your own risk if you know what you are doing.

/Daniel

[theWebalyst]

Thanks Daniel for persevering (and I'm not being ungrateful here I assure you!) but your answers weren't full or clear to me.

As I said earlier, I have already tried the command that you say works for you. I've redone it again to make sure and I get the same result (as included in my initial post).

I do now see that there is a squeeze php5-sqlite package listed at debian.org (must have searched for "php-sqlite" before) so I agree there's probably something wrong with my B3.

I'm suspicious about the v2.2 system image because my B3 is a completely clean re-imaging (as of this morning), so maybe it is because it is a pre-release system.

I assume you are using the shipped B3 image v1.1 or are you using a pre-release system like me?

Mark

[tor]

Mark,

Note that the 2.2 release is not "stable" yet. And one side effect of using it, for now, is that the package preferences will be wrong until we officially upgrade our repository as well. (This is unfortunately due to a bug in our config files) This will result in upgrades that might corrupt the running system and that incompatible situations could arise when installing packages.

So if you want a stable system please use the 1.0 image for now. (We aim to release the upgrade officially in a couple of days.)

/Tor

[theWebalyst]

Thanks Tor,

I was warned not to run the upgrade after re-imaging and have not done this.

I shall take it that I should also not try installing any packages, and that this is probably why I can't install php5-sqlite.

I was advised to try v2.2 because of a separate issue (failure of B3's RAID recovery procedure) but as this persists on v2.2 I guess I'll either revert to a released image or wait.

Do you have a rough estimate of timescale for next OS release?

Thanks

Mark