Go-ethereum: Ubuntu PPA: Wrong swarm dependency installed on Ubuntu 16.04

[d10r]

System information

Geth version: 1.5.5-stable
OS & Version: Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS
Using the PPA https://launchpad.net/~ethereum/+archive/ubuntu/ethereum

Expected behaviour

The latest run of apt upgrade should have installed the swarm package.

Actual behaviour

Another package named "swarm" was installed: http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/swarm

Solution

My understanding of the Debian policy is that the only solution is to find another name for the package.

[5chdn]

Just want to say that swarm is the name of the binary in ArchLinux when installing geth.

• https://www.archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/geth/

It might be that the maintainer (ping @tensor5, is that you?) is not aware that

install -Dm755 -t "${pkgdir}"/usr/bin build/bin/*

also installs the swarm binary. That said, the geth package is in community repository, while the _agent-based models_ swarm is _just_ in user repository, so way down in the hierarchy.

[tensor5]

@5chdn, yes I'm aware that the geth package installs the swarm binary; I wasn't aware that there is a swarm package in AUR, but it still has zero votes, so chances it will go in [community] soon are low.

[linagee]

Same here. Ubuntu 16.04 also. Forced the correct .deb in place, but still kinda of a gotcha for anyone who doesn't know what's going on with their packages.

Solved by going here: http://ppa.launchpad.net/ethereum/ethereum/ubuntu/pool/main/e/ethereum/

Download the correct swarm .deb file that matches your go-ethereum.

sudo dpkg -i swarm_1.6.0+build9491+xenial_amd64.deb

You should see a line like: "Unpacking swarm (1.6.0+build9491+xenial) over (2.1.6-1) ..."

I'm sure this can be fixed with some sort of Debian pinning magic or just change the package name to an unused name.

Interestingly, if you overwrite the .deb like I described above, on the next update it will put back the wrong swarm package.

[karalabe]

I think we've asked @zelig to address this a few times. I'll try to sort this out for 1.6.1. It's unfortunate that there's the name clash, but it's something we have to rename unfortunately.

[lmars]

I think the swarm package should be renamed to ethereum-swarm.

[lmars]

We (the Swarm team) would like to rename the Swarm Ubuntu package to ethereum-swarm to avoid this conflict.

@karalabe what is needed to make this change?

/cc @zelig

[5chdn]

Hm... eswarm maybe?

[nonsense]

swarm package has been renamed to ethereum-swarm.

However we kept the name of the binary swarm, so in case you have had swarm debian package installed, you would have to first uninstall it, in order to use ethereum-swarm.

[nonsense]

Additional discussions at https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/issues/17295 and https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/issues/17305