Re: Bug #32888: I think this is a bug in apt.

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

On Fri, 5 Mar 1999, Hamish Moffatt wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 05, 1999 at 11:37:09AM +0100, Santiago Vila wrote:
> > > dpkg should let you do it [...]
> > 
> > No, dpkg does *not* let you do it:
> > 
> > # dpkg --remove gzip
> > dpkg: error processing gzip (--remove):
> >  This is an essential package - it should not be removed.
> > Errors were encountered while processing:
> >  gzip
> > 
> > If you think dpkg should let you to do it, submit a bug against
> > dpkg so that --force-remove-essential is on by default.
> 
> No, that's not what I meant at all. I meant that "dpkg 
> --force-remove-essential" should remove the package as requested. However,
> we should attempt to ensure that this does not hose the system. Although
> we do warn the user that they should not use --force-remove-essential,
> I think this is a special case.

I don't understand what you mean.

How can you ensure that removing an essential package (be it base or
gzip) does not hose the system? (It will certainly do, by definition of
essential).

Thanks.

-- 
 "26dfc401d0f55697093e4f0304d06ede" (a truly random sig)