Re: Apt error (tried other mailing list & Google), please help!

Thanks for the reply Panu. I suspect the install was damaged somehow
due to the upgrades done by YaST. Here's the result of the command you
mentioned:

linux-box:/home/guidoz # ls -l /bin/rpm /var/lib/rpm/Packages
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root    18700 2004-04-05 16:39 /bin/rpm
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 21417984 2004-09-21 13:06 /var/lib/rpm/Packages

Looks like /bin/rpm hasn't been touched, but the 2nd one has been
changes recently. I first noticed the problem (as I said previously)
the night of the 18th. It was working perfectly up until I did those
updates. (All updated packages were listed in my last email.)

I'm more then ready to start from scratch if that would be the best
way. What's the best way to go about removing everything so a
reinstall will work again? I didn't have any problems making it work
after the initial install.

Thanks so much for the help. =)

--
Peace. ~G


On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 08:37:55 +0300 (EEST), Panu Matilainen
<[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, 22 Sep 2004, GuidoZ wrote:
> >
> > My current delima is in the subject of this email. After doing some
> > software uninstalls through YaST (removed the games, added some
> > productivity tools), typing "apt-get update" simply returns the error:
> > "E: Unable to determine a suitable system type". I did a fair amount
> > of Goolge hunting, though not very much seems to be available.
> >
> > The result that looks the most promising
> > (http://lists.freshrpms.net/pipermail/freshrpms-list/2003-June/004745.html
> > thread) didn"t help much. The "solution"
> > (http://lists.freshrpms.net/pipermail/freshrpms-list/2003-June/004761.html)
> > doesn"t make sense to me, likely because I"m not exactly sure what it
> > means. I know what a symlink is and how to make one (I believe), yet I
> > don"t have the same situation this user did. (I didn"t change a thing
> > security wise to break the original functionality.) I tried the
> 
> The "security" aspect of moving rpm in the above link is just so much
> bollocks... Anyway, as for your actual problem - the " Unable to determine
> a suitable system type" Unable to determine a suitable system type"
> basically means that it cannot find either /bin/rpm and/or
> /var/lib/rpm/Packages files. Which kinda means there's no rpm installed on
> your system or the installation is damaged.
> 
> What does 'ls -l /bin/rpm /var/lib/rpm/Packages' say?
> 
>         - Panu -