Re: Release notes
Justin B Rye wrote:
[...]
> There's also some bad advice in a couple of places that confuses two
> quite different senses of "obsolete": leftover unnecessary libraries,
> and packages no longer in Debian. They need untangling.
Still it seems nobody's interested. Would it help if I was more
specific? The chapter on upgrading has:
Remove forgotten packages. If you have _popularity-contest_
installed, you can use _popcon-largest-unused_ to list the packages
you do not use that occupy the most space. You can also use
_deborphan_ or _debfoster_ to find obsolete packages (see Section
4.9, "Obsolete packages"). Alternatively you can start _aptitude_ in
"visual mode" and find obsolete packages under "Obsolete and Locally
Created Packages".
Yes, you can use aptitude to find the same leftover libraries that
deborphan spots; but the "Obsolete" packages in the "Obsolete and
Locally Created Packages" section aren't those "forgotten packages" -
they're just ones like gdm that don't exist in the new release.
The way to untangle this is
1) when talking about unnecessary libraries rather than Squeeze
relics, avoid the word "obsolete" - call them "redundant"
packages;
2) in the above paragraph, mention the way aptitude (and apt-get)
track redundant packages; leave the discussion of obsolete
ones for the paragraph dedicated to that topic later on.
Patch attached.
--
JBR with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package
Index: upgrading.dbk
===================================================================
--- upgrading.dbk (revision 9644)
+++ upgrading.dbk (working copy)
@@ -705,11 +705,10 @@
Remove forgotten packages. If you have
<systemitem role="package">popularity-contest</systemitem> installed, you can use
<command>popcon-largest-unused</command> to list the packages you do not use
-that occupy the most space. You can also use
-<command>deborphan</command> or <command>debfoster</command> to find obsolete
-packages (see <xref linkend="obsolete"/> ). Alternatively you can start
-<command>aptitude</command> in <quote>visual mode</quote> and find obsolete packages under
-<quote>Obsolete and Locally Created Packages</quote>.
+that occupy the most space. You can also find redundant packages with
+<command>aptitude</command> or <command>apt-get</command>, or the
+specialised commands <command>deborphan</command> or
+<command>debfoster</command>.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
@@ -1957,9 +1956,9 @@
<para>
Also, if you have used <command>aptitude</command> or
<command>apt-get</command> to manually install packages in &oldreleasename;
-it will have kept track of those packages you manually installed and will be
-able to mark as obsolete those packages pulled in by dependencies alone which
-are no longer needed if a package has been removed.
+it will have kept track of those packages, distinguishing them from those pulled
+in automatically as dependencies. If a package is subsequently removed,
+so that its dependencies are no longer needed, they will be marked for removal.
<command>aptitude</command> and <systemitem role="package">apt</systemitem>,
unlike <command>deborphan</command>, will not mark for removal packages that
you manually installed, as opposed to those that were automatically
@@ -1970,10 +1969,10 @@
# apt-get autoremove
</screen>
<para>
-There are additional tools you can use to find obsolete packages such as
+There are additional tools you can use to find redundant packages such as
<command>deborphan</command>, <command>debfoster</command> or
<command>cruft</command>. <command>deborphan</command> is highly recommended,
-although it will (in default mode) only report obsolete libraries: packages in
+although it will (in default mode) only report redundant libraries: packages in
the <quote><literal>libs</literal></quote> or <quote><literal>oldlibs</literal></quote> sections that are not used by any other packages. Do not
blindly remove the packages these tools present, especially if you are using
aggressive non-default options that are prone to produce false positives. It
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