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Confused About Package Availabilities

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ghborrmann
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Joined: 2019-12-30 19:13

Confused About Package Availabilities

#1 Post by ghborrmann »

I'm new to Debian, although I have considerable experience with Fedora and some with Arch Linux. I recently installed Debian buster, because previous googling had indicated that partimage was available in Debian. After the installation, I tried "apt install partimage", but was told that partimage was not available. I was particularly interested in the source code, so I googled for that. I found source code pages for stretch and for bullseye, but none for buster. Thus, my first confusion: if the code exists for the previous and next releases, why is there no code and no binary package for the current one? To get a better understanding of source package availability in general, I then looked for the source code for emacs. I was surprised to find pages for jessie and for stretch, but none for buster or bullseye. Again, I don't understand. Can anyone explain any of this?

With specific reference to partimage, I noted that the stretch source contains two patches, while the buster source contains four. Since partimage is no longer maintained by its developer, I assume that the two additional patches were required because of changes to the system between stretch and bullseye. I also assume that partimage was dropped from buster because the stretch code would not work without an additional patch or patches. At this point, if I want to be able to compile partimage, it seems that I have two options: to try compiling with buster's patches, or to reinstall Debian with the buster (unstable) release. Any advice?

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Re: Confused About Package Availabilities

#2 Post by arochester »

Partclone?
Partclone is a project like the well-known backup utility
"Partition Image" a.k.a. partimage.

ghborrmann
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Re: Confused About Package Availabilities

#3 Post by ghborrmann »

Thanks for partclone -- I had not been aware of that. However, my interest in partimage is because I have a number of old archives saved with that program.

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Re: Confused About Package Availabilities

#4 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

ghborrmann wrote:After the installation, I tried "apt install partimage", but was told that partimage was not available.
Looks like an RC bug was reported and they didn't have time to fix it before the release: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo ... =%23915987

You can probably backport it yourself if you really want it: https://wiki.debian.org/SimpleBackportCreation

But the project is dead upstream (v0.6.9 was released in 2010) so it might be better to find an actively maintained solution.
deadbang

ghborrmann
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Re: Confused About Package Availabilities

#5 Post by ghborrmann »

The concept of backporting was completely new to me, but the link you provided was exactly what I needed. The process went almost flawlessly; there were a few warnings and error messages that flashed by, but they apparently weren't important. I was aware that the program is dead upstream, but I have a number of old archives that I would like to be able to access. Thanks for your help!

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