Bug#329422: No warnings when uninstalling kernel package
Package: kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686
Version: 2.6.8-16
Severity: critical
Most of the time when I try to uninstall a package that's critical to
system functionality, it tells me I'm about to uninstall a core
component and asks me to type, "Yes I know what I'm doing" or similar to
continue.
$ sudo apt-get remove bash
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
bash hal hotplug udev
WARNING: The following essential packages will be removed
This should NOT be done unless you know exactly what you are doing!
bash
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 4 to remove and 123 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 3523kB disk space will be freed.
You are about to do something potentially harmful
To continue type in the phrase 'Yes, do as I say!'
?] n
Abort.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I did this:
$ sudo apt-get remove dash
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
dash initrd-tools kernel-image-2.6-686 kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 4 to remove and 121 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 45.6MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n
Abort.
Now, I haven't actually verified that removing kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686
(which does contain the running kernel, yes) will break my system, but
I'd be astonished if it didn't. (To be more precise, while removing
vmlinuz shouldn't matter until I try to run lilo again, it also contains
the /lib/modules directory.)
I think a kernel image should be treated like a core package, requiring
extra confirmation to uninstall. (Maybe it's more complicated, since a
given kernel may not actually be the one that's running, but the user
can always just type the full confirmation phrase to get around this, so
if it's easier to implement I think it should just default to requiring
extra confirmation.)
I've classed this "critical" since it has the potential to make the
system unusable if the user is not paying attention and hits Y (which
would have been easy in this case, since "dash" seems like it would be
just another shell). Probably the maintainers would class it less
serious since the situation wouldn't come up very often, but I'll let
them downgrade it if they feel its appropriate.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.8-2-686
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)
Versions of packages kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686 depends on:
ii coreutils [fileutils] 5.2.1-2 The GNU core utilities
ii fileutils 5.2.1-2 The GNU file management utilities
ii initrd-tools 0.1.81.1 tools to create initrd image for p
ii module-init-tools 3.2-pre8-1 tools for managing Linux kernel mo
kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686 recommends no packages.
-- no debconf information
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