Where did my favourite package go?

Did you upgrade to Lucid and find that some package you like is no longer available? There are a number of binary packages that were removed in Lucid as a cleanup of the archive, though for the most part the source packages are still in there. Most of these were removed because the source package was no longer buildable—meaning patches could not be applied to fix bugs since the patched source would not compile (unless, of course, the patch fixed that build issue). Some were removed because Python 2.5 was removed. To find out what happened to the package you're looking for, try this:

apt-cache showsrc $PACKAGE

This'll tell you the name of the source package (on the "Package: " line). Then go to http://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/SRCPKG/+publishinghistory for a full listing of all versions of the package in Ubuntu. If you click the triangle on the left, it'll unfold revealing changelog info for that published version. For example, Sage Math's publishing history shows that it was deleted for the depends-on-Python2.5 reason.

And there's today's lesson on how to find data in Launchpad.

Ubuntu Developer Processes presentation from CALUG

Last night I did a presentation on Ubuntu Developer Processes for Columbia (MD) Area Linux User Group. You can find the slides on SlideShare.

EDIT: Ohhh I can embed it! Neat!

Ubuntu Development Processes

Please learn to follow directions

This is the second time I've seen someone in #ubuntu do this.

When you install sun-java6-jre, it will instruct you to go download something and drop it in /tmp and hit enter (something like that). For some reason I do not understand, some users just hit enter without downloading the file they were supposed to and putting it where they were supposed to. Of course, computers don't like it when users don't follow directions. The result is that apt sits there waiting…and waiting…and waiting. Eventually the user assumes everything is done and shuts down. Or maybe they try to install something else and find the dpkg lock in place and try to forcibly kill it or force shut down. Since Java is half-configured, dpkg ends up in an inconsistent state that lasts across reboots and is a pain to try to sort out.

All because somebody can't follow directions.

EDIT: So someone's said in comments that you only get prompted if you install on the command line. Synaptic just hangs waiting for an answer to a question it hasn't even asked. Yikes!