[clug] Help with Debian package management

[Ian Petts]

I have been subscribed to this list for some months, but am just
de-lurking now, so "hi everyone" :-)

I trying to migrate from RedHat to Debian "Woody" 3.0r2 stable and am
having trouble getting my head around Debian's package management. At the
moment I have two problems:

1. I have a commercial, third-party app installed as an MTA (it does virus
and spam filtering, and runs its own version of sendmail). It installed
binaries from a tar.gz file via an install script and has no .deb package.

If I now go to install something that depends on an MTA, mutt for example
(through "apt-get install mutt"), the package manager insists on
installing exim as well. I don't want/need exim installed, I have to run
the other MTA. How do I tell APT that its MTA requirement is satisfied,
and to go ahead and install _only_ mutt? I thought this was taken care of
through update-alternatives, however, this looks fine (to my untrained
eye):

  trillian:~# update-alternatives --display mta
  mta - status is manual.
   link currently points to /opt/pmx4/postfix/sbin/sendmail
  /opt/pmx4/sendmail/sbin/sendmail - priority 50
   slave mta-newaliases: /opt/pmx4/sendmail/bin/newaliases
   slave mta-mailq: /opt/pmx4/sendmail/bin/mailq
  Current `best' version is /opt/pmx4/sendmail/sbin/sendmail.
  trillian:~#


2. On the same box I need to run tripwire. I note that it is not available
in Woody stable, but I found a package for it on the Debian site in the
unstable area. I do _not_ want to go to unstable or testing on this box,
but am willing to install tripwire from unstable as it is the only version
I can get. If I try and install this, I get a heap of errors:

  trillian:~# dpkg -i /cdrom/tripwire_2.3.1.2.0-2_i386.deb
  Selecting previously deselected package tripwire.
  (Reading database ... 7712 files and directories currently installed.)
  Unpacking tripwire (from .../tripwire_2.3.1.2.0-2_i386.deb) ...
  dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of tripwire:
   tripwire depends on libc6 (>= 2.3.2.ds1-4); however:
    Version of libc6 on system is 2.2.5-11.5.
   tripwire depends on libgcc1 (>= 1:3.3.2-1); however:
    Package libgcc1 is not installed.
   tripwire depends on libstdc++5 (>= 1:3.3.2-1); however:
    Package libstdc++5 is not installed.
   tripwire depends on exim | mail-transport-agent; however:
    Package exim is not installed.
    Package mail-transport-agent is not installed.
    Package exim which provides mail-transport-agent is not installed.
  dpkg: error processing tripwire (--install):
   dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
  Errors were encountered while processing:
   tripwire
  trillian:~#

I realise that the packages listed above need to be installed (and there's
exim again), but doesn't the package manager usually take care of the
dependencies for me? I suspect I have these packages on the CD set
already, but they are likely older versions and tripwire from unstable is
looking for newer versions than the stable CD set provides. Is it possible
to get tripwire installed without upgrading all the above to unstable or
breaking the dependencies on the current setup?

Thanks very much for any help.

Regards,
Ian.