dpkg --set-selections : dpkg: warning: package not in database

[Lars Noodén]

dpkg --set-selections does not work any more to find packages that have not already been installed on the system. If new packages are introduced, an error is produced with no effect on the selections. In the example below, "tidy" has not yet been installed on the system, but it gives the same result with any other package that has not yet been installed:

echo "tidy install" | dpkg --set-selections
dpkg: warning: package not in database at line 1: tidy

What should happen is that the package state be set properly so that "apt-get dselect-upgrade" works.

This might be related to Debian bug 684776

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=684776

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.10
Package: dpkg 1.16.10ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.11.0-9.16-generic 3.11.2
Uname: Linux 3.11.0-9-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.12.5-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Sep 29 10:12:58 2013
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-09-26 (2 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Lubuntu 13.10 "Saucy Salamander" - Beta amd64+mac (20130925)
MarkForUpload: True
SourcePackage: dpkg
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Computer Science Support (cs-support)]

Doing the following fixes this problem for me
 sudo apt-get install dselect
 sudo dselect update

[Greg Meyer (gmmeyer)]

I can confirm that sudo dselect update fixes the problem for me, too.

[jhansonxi (jhansonxi)]

Also affects dpkg version 1.17.5ubuntu5.3 in Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr), at least the 32-bit release.

[Tamlin (storyjesse-gmail)]

Also affects 64-bit version:

dpkg version 1.17.5 (amd64) in Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr)

[Adam Conrad (adconrad)]

This isn't a bug. If you don't keep the available file up to date (using dselect update), you can't expect the other dselect features (like apt-get dselect-upgrade) to work.

[Paul Flint (flint)]

Greetings,
 sudo apt-get install dselect
 sudo dselect update

Did now work for me. :^(

What I ended up doing was to take the package file, which contains lines like this:

acl install

and, using a text editor (maybe eventually sed or awk :^) made them look like this:

apt-get install acl 2>>errors

Did this to the whole file, then chmod'ed it +x and fired it off...

The only real rub is you have to keep hitting enter every now and then in the install.

Meh...

Flint

[john (jmwombat122)]

@Paul Flint use apt-get -y (assumes 'yes' to all questions with vague degree of intelligence; see the man page)