How to safely replace a Buster/stable package with a Stretch/oldstable package and maintain it?
Greetings Debianistas, Clementine audio/music player version 'clementine/bionic 1.3.1+git276-g3485bbe43+dfsg-1.1build1 amd64' used by Ubuntu 18.04 flavors works perfectly for my particular needs. However, on two older laptops for which I most value Clementine's abilities for downloading podcasts, the slightly newer/different Clementine version 'clementine/stable 1.3.1+git609-g623a53681+dfsg-1 amd64', which is supplied by the default repos for Debian 10 stable/Buster and antiX 19 (a lightweight Debian derivative), always fails with respect to the Music > Add Podcast > iTunes Search option. I currently spend about half my time living in a location where the only access to the internet I have is through occasional infrequent use of WiFi supplied by the public library (now closed and only through an office window and apparently restricted hours due to Covid 19). So I really want to be able to conveniently grab new episodes of particular podcasts using these two reliable and infrequently updated Debian machines. By way of additional context and perspective, my Android/F-Droid phone app, AntennaPod, which has an Add Podcast > iTunes Search functionality similar to Clementine, always works fine (though with more limited speed and storage capability than the laptops.) So, although I won't entirely rule it out, I don't expect the iTunes Search problem lies directly or solely with iTunes or the current anti-competitive (and perhaps understandable) machinations of Apple. It happens that Clementine version '1.3.1+git276-g3485bbe43+dfsg-1', the version provided for Ubuntu 18.04 flavors (less the .1build1 suffix), appears to be exactly the same as that listed at https://packages.debian.org/stretch/clementine as the version formerly provided by Debian for oldstable/Stretch. So, in theory it seems probable that I ought to be able to simply replace the Buster version of Clementine with the Stretch version so as to obtain the full functionality I have under Ubuntu in Debian. People usually seem to complain that the problem with Debian is the default preference for older packages, but in this case the problem seems to be exactly the other way around. General Linux and Ubuntu information I've found suggests that it is a reasonable possibility to restrict the use of certain packages to older or specific versions of software, but I've yet to locate official Debian sources that provide direct confirmation or clearly applicable instruction for my case. All the wiki.debian.org instructions seem to be geared to using the occasional newer 'sid' or 'testing' version in 'stable' installations. Of course, if I can get the Stretch version of Clementine installed in Buster, I want to do it in the safest and most maintainable way so that nothing is liable to break. Any advice or suggestions? Thanks, Tom
On Thu, 14 May 2020 09:55:07 -0600 Tom Ashcraft <trailerdog234@comcast.net> wrote:
Greetings Debianistas,
...
People usually seem to complain that the problem with Debian is the default preference for older packages, but in this case the problem seems to be exactly the other way around.
You can use apt pinning and apt preferences to keep a package from updating. man apt_preferences https://manpages.debian.org/buster/apt/apt_preferences.5.en.html I have no idea how to undo an update and install older packages. I looked into doing that once and came to the conclusion that was a risky thing to do and was likely to result in a broken system. Mars -- ============================================================= J. Marsden DeLapp, PE President DeLapp & Associates, Inc. dba DeLapp Engineering. Providing lighting and power planning, design and analysis services for commercial, industrial and large residential facilities. 1190 Harrison Road Ste 3a Santa Fe NM 87507 (505) 983-5557 https://DeLapp.com =============================================================
Tom Ashcraft writes:
Clementine audio/music player version 'clementine/bionic 1.3.1+git276-g3485bbe43+dfsg-1.1build1 amd64' used by Ubuntu 18.04 flavors works perfectly for my particular needs.
However, on two older laptops for which I most value Clementine's abilities for downloading podcasts, the slightly newer/different Clementine version [ ... ] always fails with respect to the Music > Add Podcast > iTunes Search option.
It would help a lot if you knew why it was failing. Have you run it from the command line, with any applicable --verbose or --debug or whatever, to see if it prints any error messages? Keep in mind that the problem might not be in clementine, it might be in one of the other libraries it uses. Configuring apt to pull a newer version of a package is fairly easy, but I suspect pulling an older version of just one package is much harder. However, you could download the .deb directly: go to https://packages.ubuntu.com/bionic/clementine Scroll down to "Download clementine", click on your architecture (amd64 or whatever) and it will take you to a list of mirrors where you can download the .deb file. Once it's downloaded, you can try to install it with dpkg -i clementine_1.3.1+git276-g3485bbe43+dfsg-1.1build1_amd64.deb There's a reasonable chance that this will fail because it depends on specific versions of other packages that you don't have, in which case the problem gets way more complicated and risky. In that case, another option is to build from source. First get the dependencies: on one of these older laptops: sudo apt install build-essential fakeroot devscripts sudo apt build-dep clementine Then get the clementine source. Since you have inconsistent access to the internet (been there, done that, sympathize), I'd suggest getting both the Ubuntu deb-src that's known to work, and the git version. For the former, see "Download Source Package" on that packages.ubuntu.com link I gave earlier. Download the clementine_1.3.1+git609-g623a53681+dfsg-1build1.debian.tar.xz which you can build following https://wiki.debian.org/BuildingTutorial For git, do a search for "clementine git source", click on "Clone or download", copy the URL there, then run: git clone [copied URL] then follow the build instructions in the README. If you can't get it working, another good podcast downloader (not player) is podget. I used it for years until I switched to an Android podcast player. ...Akkana
participants (3)
-
Akkana Peck -
J. Marsden DeLapp -
Tom Ashcraft