Re:(solution) What to do with "base"???

[servis@purdue.edu]

*- On  9 Mar, Mark Phillips wrote about "What to do with "base"???"
> My system is now uptodate with the newly released Slink, but there are
> now a number of obsolete packages.  In particular, there are two
> _required_ packages listed as obsolete:
> 
>     ------- Obsolete/local Required packages in section base -------
>  *__ Req base     base         1.1.0-14    <none>
>  *** Req base     slang0.99.38 0.99.38-6   <none>
> 
> When dselect attempts to delete base, it complains that
> 
>     This is an essential package - it should not be removed.
> 
> Now I could use dpkg to force its removal, but when I asked about this
> on the list earlier, George Bonser told me:
> 
>     NO!!!!!!!! DO NOT REMOVE BASE! IT WILL KILL YOUR SYSTEM!!!
> 
>     Just wait, that is a known bug and is on the list of bugs that must be
>     fixed. Leave it until there is a solution for the
>     problem. Otherwise you will remove several vital packages.
> 
> But now that Slink has been officially released, has this bug been
> fixed?  Is there a way to safely remove base?  (Not to mention
> slang0.99.38)
> 

If I remember correclty you can remove slang without a problem.  The
solution to remove base without waiting for a clean way to do it in
dselect is, and I quote from
http://www.debian.org/Lists-Archives/debian-user-9707/msg01109.html

      To: debian-user@lists.debian.org, eparis@ven.ra.rockwell.com (Eloy A. Paris) 
      Subject: Re: 1.3.1 upgrade: getting rid of the package base 1.1.0-13 -- dselect and downgrading dosemu 
      From: bruce@pixar.com (Bruce Perens) 
      Date: Fri, 11 Jul 97 16:45 PDT 
      References: <wjxiuyj8b0s.fsf@coelacanthe.irisa.fr> 
      Reply-To: Bruce Perens <bruce@pixar.com> 

      However, edit /var/lib/dpkg/status and remove the paragraph
      about the "base" package, and that will effectively purge it.
      Forcing dpkg to remove the package removes all of the files in /dev.
      It's my error, sorry.

           Bruce


Then remove the files /var/lib/dpkg/info/base.*

That worked for me when I did it.

<DISCLAIMER>
YMMV, make backups of /var/lib/dpkg/status and
/var/lib/dpkg/info/base.*.
<DISCLAIMER>
-- 
Brian 
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Mechanical Engineering                                bservis@usa.net
Purdue University                   http://www.ecn.purdue.edu/~servis
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