Apt-get dist-upgrade threatening to remove 1500 files - SOLVED

[amacater@galactic.demon.co.uk (Andrew M.A. Cater)]

All,

Apologies for the bandwidth used.  I had the entry for
security.debian.org stable updates in my /etc/apt/sources.list.

Upgrade-system saw that and attempted to downgrade my entire system
such that it complied with the latest security updates for stable or 
some such - resulting in the perverse output.  Commenting out the
offending line and rerunning the command sorted it out.

Not immediately obvious - cross posted to -devel (since I started the 
thread in error here when I couldn't remember where I'd seen it before)
and to -user in the hope that it helps the other gentleman who is
experiencing problems.

HTH someone,

Andy