Compression error with debian.

[dryzone]

This one has been going on for a couple of years with Lazarus  on Debian.
There are no subforum search available so it is not possible to search for previous solutions.

The problem is as follows. z-compression used in the deb. Debian dropped the support seemingly for this compression.
I installed an available zst .deb and it installed successfully. the installation still throws the same error regardless whether zst is present or not.

*Why not stick to gz so all Linux flavors can understand the deb ?*

Why use exotic compression algorithms in your debs ?
Makes no sense. We want as many people as possible to use Lazarus, therefore use the widest supported compression algorithms e.g. gz. so that the software will at least install.


# dpkg --install lazarus-project_3.8.0-0_amd64.deb
dpkg-deb: error: archive 'lazarus-project_3.8.0-0_amd64.deb' uses unknown compression for member 'control.tar.zst', giving up
dpkg: error processing archive lazarus-project_3.8.0-0_amd64.deb (--install):
 dpkg-deb --control subprocess returned error exit status 2
Errors were encountered while processing:
 lazarus-project_3.8.0-0_amd64.deb

My system:
------------
NAME="MX"
VERSION="21.3 (Wildflower)"
ID="mx"
VERSION_ID="21.3"
PRETTY_NAME="MX 21.3 (Wildflower)"
ANSI_COLOR="0;34"
HOME_URL="https://mxlinux.org"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://mxlinux.org"
PRETTY_NAME="MX 21.3 Wildflower"
DISTRIB_ID=MX
DISTRIB_RELEASE=21.3
DISTRIB_CODENAME="Wildflower"
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="MX 21.3 Wildflower"
PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="11"
VERSION="11 (bullseye)"
VERSION_CODENAME=bullseye
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"

[dbannon]

The problem is as follows. z-compression used in the deb. Debian dropped the support seemingly for this compression.

No, I don't think Debian dropped ZStandard, until recently, I don't think they supported it.  From memory, Ubuntu did support it (in an official release) earlier than Debian but not sure if that was due to release cycle timing or Ubuntu 'updating' it.

NAME="MX"
VERSION="21.3 (Wildflower)"

Wildflower is based on Debian 11, "old stable".

From the man page (bookworm, debian 12)
-Zcompress-type
           Specify which compression type to use when building a package.  Allowed values are gzip, xz (since dpkg 1.15.6), zstd (since dpkg 1.21.18) and none (default is xz).

Looks to me like MX Wildflower uses something earlier than dpkg 1.21.18 ?

And, looks to me like whoever builds Lazarus debs is getting a bit excited with the faster compression algorithm. Yep, might be better to stick with xz for just a bit longer.

Davo

Edit : take the easy way out dryzone, build from source !

[dryzone]

I can vividly remember the issue about dropping it as it was discussed on debian ug. I will try to get the post to see if I did not maybe misinterpreted it.

I will have to install from source, but it is really peculiar to me that Lazarus Dev seems to prefer a slight compression improvement at the penalty of losing the entire  Debian base regarding the  .deb  distribution. this issue has been present for quite some time now..years.

I installed z as it was not present on vanilla Debian install, and it installed without error. Still the lazarus deb chocked, so I guess the problem goes a bit deeper with the deb distribution of Lazarus.

Makes utterly no sense.

[MarkMLl]

This is an excerpt from 12/Bookworm:

Code: [Select]

$ apt-cache search -n zst
...
libzstd-dev - fast lossless compression algorithm -- development files
libzstd1 - fast lossless compression algorithm
zstd - fast lossless compression algorithm -- CLI tool
zst - CLI tool for zstd (and other) compression

Ditto v11.

Looking at the incremental log of what I've installed, I believe that the zstd package was installed as part of the fundamental binaries. I also believe that the last of the various LZ patents lapsed a long time ago.

MarkMLl

[dbannon]

No, you may have missed the point, zst was available in Debian 11 (Bullseye) but dpkg (and friends) did not use it until release 1.21.18.  That was early 2023, too early to make it into Debian 11. Its available and works with dpkg in Debian 12 (bookworm). 

In all cases, zx is dpkg's default, the Lazarus Packager must be giving an option to use zst OR is using Ubuntu packaging tools which, from memory, recently default to zst.

You have to feel for Ubuntu, they desperately want to make their mark but everything they come up with is greeted with a yawn (Unity, Snaps, dpkg using zst).

Davo

[dryzone]

Installed from sources, and is currently working through meeting missing dependencies.
Some of the dependencies are not available as debs, so I have to figure out where to get the correct sources.
All this schlepp just because they want the binaries to compress better.
But, it is free and take it or leave it, so doesnt help to complain, but still it is still a very odd decission.


cannot find
lgdk-x11-2.0 lgtk-x11-2.0
lX11
lgdk_pixbuf-2.0
lgobject-2.0
lglib-2.0
lgthread-2.0
lgmodule-2.0
lpango-1.0
lcairo
latk-1.0
lpangocairo-1.0

[dbannon]

I have never needed to install more than libx11-dev and libgtk2.0-dev (for gtk2) as per https://wiki.freepascal.org/Installing_Lazarus_on_Linux#Get_the_Lazarus_Source

Debian 11 is a touch early for good Qt5 support.

Note that the loader or linker complains about missing libraries libXXX where it often means its missing libXXX-dev

Davo

[MarkMLl]

I have never needed to install more than libx11-dev and libgtk2.0-dev (for gtk2) as per https://wiki.freepascal.org/Installing_Lazarus_on_Linux#Get_the_Lazarus_Source

I agree. Make sure you have a working FPC (I usually install the binary as shipped by the FPC repo then recompile which needs ncurses), add libgtk2.0-dev and build. It can be desirable to install the -dev packages for ones selected database backane etc., but anything more than that is a distro problem.

MarkMLl