Packages not installing on buster

[m0n5t3r]

I was trying to follow the instructions for installing on buster on a BBB, it throws dependency issues at me:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 machinekit : Depends: machinekit-rt-threads
              Depends: python-imaging but it is not installable
              Depends: python-gnome2 but it is not installable
              Depends: python-vte but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Looking at the code in https://github.com/machinekit/machinekit-cnc/blob/master/debian/control.rt-preempt-buster.in it should be fixed, but it looks like the repo wasn't updated correctly.

[m0n5t3r]

for completeness, I tried the other packages that look like they would be what I want:

 machinekit-cnc-rt-preempt : Depends: python-gnome2 but it is not installable

 machinekit-rt-preempt : Depends: machinekit (= 0.1.1570528621.git9239acb-1~buster) but it is not going to be installed
                         Depends: yapps2-runtime but it is not installable

also, machinekit depends on machinekit-rt-threads (provided by machinekit-rt-preempt), and machinekit-rt-preempt depends on machinekit...

[cerna]

@m0n5t3r,

I am not 100% sure exactly what you are trying to install, from that excerpt it looks like you want the machinekit monopackage from historical (now deprecated) repository Machinekit/Machinekit. Is that correct?

There was an issue with dependencies. I think you are hitting the same problem as described in this thread on Machinekit mail-list.

[m0n5t3r]

I did what's specified on the website (http://www.machinekit.io/docs/getting-started/APT-packages-buster and http://www.machinekit.io/docs/getting-started/install-runtime-packages/ - already have a RT kernel installed):

• add repo from deb.machinekit.io
• attempt to install machinekit-rt-preempt

Should I understand that the packages themselves are deprecated, and the split cnc / hal from http://deb.machinekit.io/debian/pool/main/m/ are there by mistake? If so, is there any place where I can get current packages without rebuilding everything (the BBB doesn't have much free space and I'd rather not trash its onboard flash with package builds anyway...).

edit: re-read the whole thread, so in theory the documentation should be updated and hal / cnc packages are supposed to work; this was a year ago, is there any way to speed this up? do you need maintainers for stuff like this?

[cerna]

The main problem is that a year ago the build server was switched off and the deb.machinekit.io Debian repository basically deprecated because no current active developer/maintainer in Machinekit organization has a key to it.

So, I changed the dependency requirements for Machinekit-CNC, but these changes were never produced into packages as no build process was active then.

You have several options, as far as I see it:

• Switch to Debian Stretch - that distribution should have all the required dependencies available
• Remove the requirement for python-gnome2 from the package by manually editing it
• Switch to combination of Machinekit-HAL and EMCApplication to get the latest changes from Machinekit (simple, quick HOWTO is in recent thread here). The EMCApplication is basically just a direct port of EMC code from LinuxCNC and does mostly exactly what the Machinekit-CNC was doing (but with livelier development cycle).

[m0n5t3r]

thanks for the info; at a first glance I guess emcapplication it is (the machine I want to use this on still works okay with grbl on a hacked together stm32 board + cncjs on a little orange pi, and it is due for a rebuild later this year, I need to build a control box, opto-isolated cape, etc. before I can switch to machinekit / linuxcnc)