/var/lib/dpkg/available not updated correctly

[Hadmut Danisch]

Hi,

I just installed a notebook freshly with oneiric alternate installer 386.

Problem: I tried to installed the package xfce4 , but the Ubuntu Software Center does not know it and it does not appear in /var/lib/dpkg/available

Interestingly, the package is known by apt-cache, appears in /var/lib/apt/lists/de.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_oneric_universe_binary-i386_Packages and can be installed with apt-get install.

Furthermore, apt-get update works, but /var/lib/dpkg/available still has the timestamp of the installation time.

The problem seems to be that /var/lib/dpkg/available is not updated.

apt-get update does not even recreate /var/lib/dpkg/available if it is removed.
---
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release i386 (20111011)
Package: update-manager 1:0.152.25
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic 3.0.4
Tags: oneiric running-unity
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic i686
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare

[Hadmut Danisch (hadmut)]

Interesting effect: After removing /var/lib/dpkg/available the Software Center finds xfce4.

[Walter Garcia-Fontes (walter-garcia)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please execute the following command, as it will automatically gather debugging information, in a terminal:
apport-collect 876794
When reporting bugs in the future please use apport by using 'ubuntu-bug' and the name of the package affected. You can learn more about this functionality at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs.

[Hadmut Danisch (hadmut)]

apport information

[Hadmut Danisch (hadmut)]

apport information

[Walter Garcia-Fontes (walter-garcia)]

Have you solved this issue?

In any case to install xfce the appropriate package is

sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop

[Hadmut Danisch (hadmut)]

No, did not solve. On one of my older (and upgraded to oneiric) machines /var/lib/dpkg/available is about 4MB large and contains about 4428 packages.

On the other machine with a freshly installed oneiric it just is just 432KB large and contains 445 packages.

BTW, the hint with xubuntu-desktop is wrong and completely misses the point. It is wrong because the *-desktop packages contain much more and change the genereal appearance to turn the machine into a xubuntu or kubuntu or whatever machine, and they are mutually exclusive (or used to be). For getting just the XFCE functions, these are not the correct packages.

However, this completely misses the point, because the xubuntu-desktop package isn't in the available file either, and whether the xfce package is the right one or not is absolutely irrelevant for the fact that it should be contained in the available file.

[Walter Garcia-Fontes (walter-garcia)]

Sorry, I thought you were trying to install the xfce desktop.

We should then see if in a freshly installed oneiric this can be reproduced consistently to finish triaging this bug.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for update-manager (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]