missing packages in mobaxterm apt-get session

Question

When attempting to install Python in MobaXterm, two packages are not found in the local repository. I have found at least one of them in an external repository and I would like to configure my terminal to use another repository beside the one indicated in the example directory tree as follows:

http://mirrors.kernel.org/sourceware/cygwin/release/cygwin-devel

Either that or I would like to change the package version to one that exists in this location, but then I worry about package versioning issues.

Or a third option would be to download the packages I find in the other locations and install them using the same terminal I used to install the other Python packages.

Here are the two packages with issues:

Installing cygwin-devel
Downloading cygwin-devel-2.7.0-1.tar.xz...
Downloading /home/mobaxterm/.aptcyg/http%3a%2f%2fmirrors.kernel.org%2fsourceware%2fcygwin/release/cygwin-devel/cygwin-devel-2.7.0-1.tar.xz using Windows internet settings
sha512sum: can't open 'cygwin-devel-2.7.0-1.tar.xz': No such file or directory
/bin/apt-cyg: line 476: test: 8f382e85417a4efa951607776be66cf91381e4075bcc4458da40141951305675faff4890bd2723de91483725c5d5bd726128355a2de41a0c743428b2829fe48c: unary operator expected
md5sum: can't open 'cygwin-devel-2.7.0-1.tar.xz': No such file or directory
/bin/apt-cyg: line 479: test: 8f382e85417a4efa951607776be66cf91381e4075bcc4458da40141951305675faff4890bd2723de91483725c5d5bd726128355a2de41a0c743428b2829fe48c: unary operator expected
Checksum did not match, exiting

Installing libexpat1
Downloading libexpat1-2.2.0-0.tar.xz...
Downloading /home/mobaxterm/.aptcyg/http%3a%2f%2fmirrors.kernel.org%2fsourceware%2fcygwin/release/libexpat1/libexpat1-2.2.0-0.tar.xz using Windows internet settings
sha512sum: can't open 'libexpat1-2.2.0-0.tar.xz': No such file or directory
/bin/apt-cyg: line 476: test: a39f95f129fc7abe1e22f71925844dac0160f7c536f01bb8e5cc1f9b23f19266dd95e633a4e44d6b4ad792aa25c2a69b473dd06400ef4e7dab02e88877020455: unary operator expected
md5sum: can't open 'libexpat1-2.2.0-0.tar.xz': No such file or directory
/bin/apt-cyg: line 479: test: a39f95f129fc7abe1e22f71925844dac0160f7c536f01bb8e5cc1f9b23f19266dd95e633a4e44d6b4ad792aa25c2a69b473dd06400ef4e7dab02e88877020455: unary operator expected
Checksum did not match, exiting

Thanks in advance for any insights that might lead me to resolve this and have a clean Python installation.

Answer 1

I found a workaround - hopefully. In essence, the setup.ini file on the repository references a version of the packages that actually does not exist on that repository. After reading up on apt-get I learned that I could pass a legacy flag to get an earlier version of the package installed:

[micro.MSI] ➤ apt-get install --legacy libexpat1
Found package libexpat1

Installing libexpat1
Downloading libexpat1-2.2.0-0.tar.xz...
Unpacking libexpat1-2.2.0-0.tar.xz...
Extracting dependencies for usr/bin/cygexpat-1.dll...
Package libexpat1 requires the following packages, installing cygwin
Package cygwin is already installed, skipping
Package libexpat1 installed.

Rebasing new libraries

This might introduce versioning issues, but the dependency was already there, as it should be since it was installed in the earlier python installation. Now I can see if I can get the other modules installed for my project.

If anyone else has advice about this package management issue, please chime in. I am wondering if I should notify the source repository owners about their setup.ini file pointing to versions that do not exist.