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Why are some Open Office packages marked as "local or obsolete" in Synaptic

rated 0 times [ 3] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 905 / 1 Year ago, mon, november 7, 2022, 3:05:08

This is a follow up to this question: What does “local or obsolete” mean in Synaptic.

I have not installed Open Office manually. I doubt that Open Office has been dropped from the repositories. So why are Open Office packages marked as "local or obsolete" in Synaptic?

Synaptic showing Installed (local or obsolete)

I am using Ubuntu 10.04.

Update

I highly doubt that the switch to LibreOffice is the cause for the Open Office packages being marked "local or obsolete".

Several reasons:

There are more than just the Open Office packages which are marked "local or obsolete". For example: python-uno, scim, and xserver-xorg-input-wacom.

The ubuntu wiki pages explicitly says that ubuntu 10.04 still uses Open Office. (Link now redirects to another page. Link was: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OfficeApplications/DefaultPackages)

There are no LibreOffice packages in the Ubuntu 10.04 repositories. As the link above says, one has to use a PPA to get LibreOffice. I am pretty sure Ubuntu will not drop Open Office packages without having replacements in the official repositories.

Ubuntu 10.04 is a LTS (Long Term Support) version. Canonical is very conservative with upgrades on LTS versions. Ubuntu 10.04 even still uses Firefox 3.6.

Usually, when they do such updates, there is a transitional package which conflicts with the old packages so they get uninstalled. So happened with the old adobe flash plugin package.

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answered 1 Year ago warrdel · Accepted Answer

The most likely explanation is the following:

You have the proposed repository enabled.

Upgrades for the open office packages were uploaded to the proposed repository.

You upgraded the open office packages from the proposed repository.

The proposed upgrades were rejected and subsequently removed from the proposed repository.

Synaptic can no longer find the open office packages with the same or newer version in any repository and declares the installed packages as "local or obsolete".

There is a more detailed explanation about the meaning of "local or obsolete" in this question: What does "local or obsolete" mean in Synaptic.

The proposed repository is a repository for, as the name says, proposed updates. If they are approved then the packages are transfered to another "stable" repository and all is good. If they are not approved then they are simply removed from the proposed repository. The transfer and the removal happens silently. There is no notification mechanism (that I know of) which notifies the user of these changes. That means if you have the proposed repository enabled you might get "local or obsolete" packages at any time without warning.

Note that it is not recommended to have the proposed repository enabled on a production system. The Proposed repository is meant for package testers only. I did not know this before and had the proposed repository enabled. I have now disabled the proposed repository after learning about it's purpose and the consequences.

There are two methods to "fix" the situation. With "fix" I mean doing something so the packages are no longer listed under "local or obsolete".

Wait for the packages to be upgraded again. Hopefully, this time the proposed upgrade will stick.

Remove the proposed repository and force each package to downgrade to the latest version available in a "stable" repository.

The first method is easy. Just wait. But possibly wait forever if the packages are never upgraded again.

The second method is not as easy and can be quite troublesome, especially if the package has other packages depending on it. An explanation how to downgrade from proposed is provided in the answers to this question: How can I revert back from an upgrade to the Proposed repository?.