SOLVED: fresh LMDE: APT can't find known-good packages?

[TomRoche]

summary: From fresh install of LMDE 201012 from DVD, with minimal twiddling and with good networking, I get:

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me@it:~$ sudo aptitude install mintupdate-debian
> Couldn't find any package whose name or description matched "mintupdate-debian"
...
me@it:~$ sudo aptitude install emacs
> Couldn't find package "emacs".  However, the following
> packages contain "emacs" in their name:
>   emacsen-common 

and same with `apt-get`. How to fix?

details:

I've been using vanilla/GNOME Ubuntu for a few years on my laptop, and for about 6 months have been running another box with Mint. After this week installing katya on the other box and natty on my laptop (both went well), I decided it was time to try LMDE and rolling releases on my laptop.

I clonezilla-ed my natty install, then booted LMDE from the 201012 DVD. It found my partitions: I formatted /boot and /, keeping swap and /home. After install, LMDE restarted, without too many errors (e.g., GNOME is annoyed that it can't find hamster-applet).

I first tried to install emacs, since I'm logging what I'm doing as I install (and because I do pretty much everything else in emacs anyway :-), but

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me@it:~$ sudo aptitude install emacs
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  anthy-common{a} emacs emacs23{a} emacs23-bin-common{a} emacs23-common{a} emacsen-common{a} libanthy0{a} libgd2-noxpm{a} 
  libm17n-0{a} libotf0{a} m17n-contrib{a} m17n-db{a} 
0 packages upgraded, 12 newly installed, 0 to remove and 109 not upgraded.
Need to get 28.8 MB of archives. After unpacking 103 MB will be used.
...
Setting up libanthy0 (9100h-6) ...
Setting up libgd2-noxpm (2.0.36~rc1~dfsg-5) ...
Setting up libotf0 (0.9.11-1) ...
Setting up libm17n-0 (1.6.1-1) ...
Setting up m17n-db (1.6.1-2) ...
Setting up m17n-contrib (1.1.11-1) ...
E: Failed to fetch http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/e/emacs23/emacs23-common_23.2+1-5.1_all.deb: 404  Not Found [IP: 130.89.149.226 80]

which seemed obviously wrong! I then tried `sudo apt-get install emacs` but got the same error. Since I had no clue what was wrong (I've never seen anything like the above error before), I hoped that the problem was on the debian side of the web, and proceeded with other tasks.

I next installed the System76 driver (the laptop is an S76 PanP5, runs ubuntu well) without apparent error, then proceeded to try to setup for LMDE update packs as described in the blog. I first backed up and then edited sources.list:

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me@it:~$ diff /etc/apt/sources.list.0 /etc/apt/sources.list
2c2
< deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free
---
> deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest testing main contrib non-free

I then tried to install package=mintupdate-debian, but got

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me@it:~$ sudo aptitude install mintupdate-debian
> Couldn't find any package whose name or description matched "mintupdate-debian"
...
me@it:~$ sudo aptitude install emacs
> Couldn't find package "emacs".  However, the following
> packages contain "emacs" in their name:
>   emacsen-common 

So obviously something is very wrong. (I know 'package "emacs"' exists :-) How to fix?

[zerozero]

let's see: obviously, between changing sources.list and trying to install MU-debian you did

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sudo aptitude update

[TomRoche]

let's see: obviously, between changing sources.list and trying to install MU-debian you did

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sudo aptitude update

I did not. Should I have?

On ubuntu, I would absolutely have updated first thing after an install. But since I was on debian testing, I thought I should first try to setup the Update Pack.

[zerozero]

you have to refresh the pkg cache, MU-debian is a new pkg

aptitude update- Update the list of available packages from the master servers.
(this is equivalent to "apt-get update")

and for emacs

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amadeu@amadeu ~ $ apt-cache policy emacs
emacs:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 23.3+1-1
  Version table:
     23.3+1-1 0
        500 http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ testing/main amd64 Packages

[TomRoche]

Thanks for your prompt response! I'm very new to debian and LMDE, but I should have guessed

you have to refresh the pkg cache

Doh! However, something else appears to be wrong:

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me@it:~$ sudo aptitude update
Get:1 http://packages.linuxmint.com debian Release.gpg [198 B]
Ign http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/import Translation-en
Ign http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/import Translation-en_US
Ign http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/main Translation-en
Get:2 http://debian.linuxmint.com testing Release.gpg [836 B]
Ign http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/ testing/contrib Translation-en
Ign http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/ testing/contrib Translation-en_US
Ign http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/main Translation-en_US
Ign http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/upstream Translation-en
Ign http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/upstream Translation-en_US
Get:3 http://packages.linuxmint.com debian Release [12.1 kB]
Ign http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/ testing/main Translation-en
Ign http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/ testing/main Translation-en_US
Ign http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/ testing/non-free Translation-en
Ign http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/ testing/non-free Translation-en_US
Hit http://debian.linuxmint.com testing Release
E: Release file expired, ignoring http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/dists/testing/Release (invalid since 17d 22h 23min 42s)

I have never seen that error before. How to fix? Note that I get a similar error from mintUpdate from the panel icon @ upper right of screen and got an error dialog:

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Could not download all repository indexes

The repository may no longer be available or could not be contacted because of network problems. If available an older version of the failed index will be used. Otherwise the repository will be ignored. Check your network connection and ensure the repository address in the preferences is correct.

Release file expired, ignoring http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/dists/testing/Release (invalid since 17d 22h 15min 14s)

[zerozero]

check here in the known issues http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=141&t=76556

[TomRoche]

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=141&t=76556

Thanks! tweaking /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/80mintupdate-debian (and then doing

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me@it:~$ sudo aptitude update
[...]
Current status: 946 updates [+940], 31634 new [+30728].
There are 5 newly obsolete packages: libmjpegtools-1.9, libquicktime1, libx264-104, libx264-98, mint-flashplugin-x64
tlroche@tlrpanp5:~$ sudo aptitude install mintupdate-debian
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  mintupdate-debian{b} 
0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 946 not upgraded.
Need to get 112 kB of archives. After unpacking 807 kB will be used.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  libfprint0: Depends: libmagickcore2 which is a virtual package.
  mintupdate-debian: Conflicts: mintupdate but 4.2.0 is installed and it is kept back.
The following actions will resolve these dependencies:

     Remove the following packages:
1)     libfprint0                  
2)     mint-meta-debian            
3)     mintupdate                  

Accept this solution? [Y/n/q/?] Y
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  mintupdate-debian 
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  libfprint0{a} mint-meta-debian{a} mintupdate{a} 
0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 3 to remove and 943 not upgraded.
Need to get 112 kB of archives. After unpacking 365 kB will be freed.
[...]
Setting up mintupdate-debian (1.0.2) ...

Configuration file `/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/80mintupdate-debian'
 ==> File on system created by you or by a script.
 ==> File also in package provided by package maintainer.
   What would you like to do about it ?  Your options are:
    Y or I  : install the package maintainer's version
    N or O  : keep your currently-installed version
      D     : show the differences between the versions
      Z     : start a shell to examine the situation
 The default action is to keep your current version.
*** 80mintupdate-debian (Y/I/N/O/D/Z) [default=N] ? N
                                         
Current status: 0 broken [-1], 943 updates [-3].

) seems to have fixed the problem, since I can now run `sudo mintupdate` and see icon="Update Pack Info". Onward !-)