On 14 July 2017 at 16:35, Peter Alefounder via Hampshire <
hampshire@???> wrote:
>
> "Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it:"
>
> My desktop machine is running Debian Wheezy and is not connected to
> the internet, which is why it would not be easy to install silentcast
> on that. One reason for getting the laptop was for the odd occasion
> when more up-to-date software was wanted. Then someone decides to
> remove ffmpeg from Ubuntu!
>
Dependency hell is only overcome when you give yourself over completely to
the APT way of doing things (or dnf for the RedHats, or whatever the SuSEs
use...). Mixing and matching leads to the problems that these systems try
to protect you from. Source installs are similar to using RPM packages on a
Debian-based system in that they break the dependency hell protections of
using a package manager.
If it helps, a more recent release of Ubuntu (namely 16.04, Xenial Xerus)
_does_ include ffmpeg so you might be able to get silentcast's deb package
working easier there, but that will either require a complete reinstall of
your system using the DVD download _or_ an online upgrade which requires
you to be connected to the internet while it downloads everything for the
upgrade. An upgrade downloads upgraded packages rather than a single OS
Image, and upgrades each package in-turn similar to how security updates
are delivered but in a more brutal way if it goes belly-up part way
through. Anecdotally I've never had an issue upgrading using the online
upgrade but I've heard others have had problems every time they try.
The online upgrade can be triggered, once you have an internet connection,
with the command `do-release-upgrade` in a terminal, or via the system
updater app in the dash. Both should detect that you're running an older
release and offer to upgrade you to 16.04.
Though as you're running a Dell, there might be some packages that Dell
provide in their default install (if it came with Ubuntu out of the box)
which don't work on an updated release of Ubuntu. If you installed Ubuntu
yourself then I would not expect this to be an issue.
--
Daniel Llewellyn
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