Re: Aptitude erroneously thinks many packages are unused and wants to remove them.

[Clive Menzies <clive@clivemenzies.co.uk>]

On (01/08/05 12:32), Adam Funk wrote:
> Inspired by the advice on this group and the -s option, I'm trying out
> aptitude.  But I'm surprised by this:
> 
> $ aptitude -s upgrade
> Reading Package Lists... Done
> Building Dependency Tree       
> Reading extended state information      
> Initializing package states... Done
> Reading task descriptions... Done  
> The following packages are unused and will be REMOVED:
> 
> followed by a long list of packages, some of which I'm running right now. 
> How does aptitude determine this list, and what's the best way to correct
> it?
> 
There've been a few posts on this over the last few days; have a look at
the d-u list archive.

Briefly, run aptitude in interactive mode - ie # aptitude
If you press g (only once), the proposed actions will be displayed, you
can then 'h' hold packages you don't want removed.

see man aptitude

If you're running etch or sid you definitely ought to install
apt-listbugs before upgrading anything.

Regards

Clive

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