However what I need now from all the “Ubuntonians” that have progressed me thus far, is the correct terminal command inputs to install the correct ‘libxml2’ suite “from scratch” ie …
Do I have to download a file or something from another place to extract for example?…….. as for some reason when using command……apt list -a libxml2…..all I get is …@ubuntu:~$ as you can see.
Using the ‘correct terminal command inputs to install the correct ‘libxml2’ suite “from scratch” I believe I should get a whole terminal full of text showing the installation and requesting my …”Y” input as I have seen on a few YouTube videos. Something amiss.
So maybe I am inadvertently missing something.
Please note that there is no package called libxml2 in Ubuntu, that is the name of a source package, the binaries actually carry their ABI version in the package name, the binary package is called libxml2-16… (see the list of binary packages on the right here ) so the search with apt list -a libxml2 can not work … You could use a wildcard in the search though: apt list -a libxml2*
The libxml2-16 package is pre-installed on every Ubuntu system by the minimal task (or the corresponding ubuntu-minimal package that all flavors and the main Ubuntu install use by default):
The addition of the ABI version to the package name happened after the 24.04 release, it is very likely that the Canon driver you try to install has only been built for older systems that do not have this change, the only people that could do anything about this would be Canon themselves by adding an additional entry to the package binary dependencies for libxml2-16 …
This is the sad nature of closed source software… if Canon would make the source of the drivers and tools open someone could quickly re-spin a package linked against libxml2-16 but since Canon decided to keep it closed only they can rebuild it…
Typically enterprises update their LTS installs only with the first point release (i.e. 26.04.1 that is due in August), I’d expect Canon to have something ready by then to not lose business customers… but you could also ask their support, perhaps they have something in the works already…
FYI, that likely won’t work as expected, b/c the * is consumed as a shell glob pattern, so one either needs to quote the whole pattern, like apt list 'libxml2*' or escape the asterisk with a backslash, like apt list libxml2\*.
@gozitan, I may have a hacky solution for fooling APT into thinking that a libxml2 package is installed. But first I would like to ask you to use preformatted text / code blocks (</>) for all terminal and log output. Your above posts are very difficult to read; I almost didn’t even bother, but seeing as this is still an open issue, I somewhat suffered through it by trying to surmise the gist.
Precisely for that purpose I have written this little helper script, to make it as easy as possible. Plus, it keeps the context by putting the command, which produced the output, in the title of the surrounding “Hide Details” block.
As for the foolery of APT, the equivs package can be very handy for creating fake packages that only provide some package metadata. I haven’t done this in a while, so this is just an outlook, to show where this is headed…
Create a control file (just copy this using the icon in the top right of the code block, and paste it into a terminal window by pressing CtrlShiftV, then press Enter):
cat >~/libxml2.ctl <<EOF
Section: misc
Priority: optional
Standards-Version: 3.9.2
Package: libxml2
Version: 2.15
Depends: libxml2-16
Description: Dummy package to satisfy dependencies
Some 3rd party packages need this.
.
This is just a dummy package without actual content.
EOF
Build the package:
equivs-build ~/libxml2.ctl
That should produce a file named ~/libxml2_2.15_all.deb.
Install that dummy package:
sudo dpkg -i ~/libxml2_2.15_all.deb
That’s it. If all went well you should now be able to install that driver package from Canon, with its dependencies met. If not, please provide the (properly preformatted) terminal output.
P.S.: Testing was done on Ubuntu 24.04, which still has a genuine libxml2 package, hence the 2.15 version (without the “long tail”), to satisfy dependencies on my end; a somewhat proper version number shouldn’t hurt, though.
Currently Sid has both libxml2 and libxml2-16 available. Libxml2 is 2.12 and libxml2-16 is 2.15. I guess Ubuntu decision was not to include libxml2 since libxml2-16 is built from the same libxml2 source and is just a newer version, so it would be redundant to have 2 libxml2 packages?
Dunno, but I think if libxml2 isn’t going to be included, then the packager should have added a “Provides: libxml2” field to the libxml2-16’s control file.
The current state will likely cause a problem during 24.04->26.04 upgrade for packages installed from outside the Ubuntu repos. For instance, Virtualbox-7.2 from virtualbox.org depends on libxml2, so that’ll show up as a broken package during an apt upgrade.
That was my first thought, too, and I considered using Provides: in above equivs hack, but thought better of it; what’s the point, when it’s a dummy anyway.
I wonder if this warrants an RC (release critical) bug report, b/c it might break other software, which is class A policy violation in Debian. It’s just that the other software is not part of the Debian repos, so the maintainer could refuse to accept that reasoning. But then again, Ubuntu/Canonical could see it a different way and override said refusal.
Yeah, I was thinking about filing a bug, but I checked questing as well and libxml2 is missing from it. So I’m a little surprised that this hasn’t come up earlier or if it has I just missed the bug report when skimming the list. I guess no one running 25.10 has tried to install Virtualbox debs from virtualbox.org and not run into that problem? That seems unlikely, but I guess it could happen.
Edit: Looks like someone beat me to it on virtualbox’s side
Hi all that have come back with help. I will go through all the reply’s in next couple of days to see where I go. (Currently I am on volunteer mission with a local charity so need to be focused to deal with Ubuntu when free in 2 days)
Incidentally I have also contacted Canon EU / UK with my issue and am awaiting response.
Just for interest, I am suffering the exact same issue with my Canon GX 7060 printer after upgrading from 25.10 to 26.04. It was initially an issue over the network, but a Ubuntu recent update killed the usb version as well.
If you are only working with CUPS, and not using any specific Canon-supplied printer drivers, I strongly recommend you re-think the approach and go looking for the appropriate drivers and docs on their web site:
Thanks for the reply, Eric. I will try the debug script. In my case, I am using the Canon drivers for my printer. The USB version of the printer is now working again, but still not the wi-fi connection.
Forgive my ignorance - is this what you were expecting?
sudo lpstat -t
[sudo: authenticate] Password:
scheduler is running
no system default destination
lpstat: No destinations added.
lpstat: No destinations added.
lpstat: No destinations added.
lpstat: No destinations added.
