Re: debian upgrade mess

[Chris Palmer <debian@zencow.com>]

kmself@ix.netcom.com wrote
> on Sun, Nov 19, 2000 at 04:07:50PM -0800, Chris Palmer (debian@zencow.com) wrote:
> > Wow, was I surprised when a number of packages were removed from my
> > system at the end.  I had a fun time getting perl back on my system,
> > and a really cool guy from work created a custom package for me so I
> > could get Majordomo running again.
> 
> This is known to happen occasionally.  Usually, if you catch the action
> before committing it, you can exit dselect without harm.

unfortunately, I didn't go that route at the time.  and I ended up
doing some apt-get upgrade and maybe even dist-upgrade and maybe
even dselect-upgrade.  I don't remember at this point.

> There are a number of files 'status*' under /var/lib/dpkg.  If you've
> hosed your system, you can generally copy a backup from a prior date and
> salvage your package settings.

cool. I found settings from before I did the upgrade.  Now that I 
have this file, how do I use it to my advantage?  I *do* want to
upgrade, but I want to have the packages installed that I had
initially.

> For a given package, it's often much better to use apt-get:
>     $ apt-get install samba lynx

ok, I just tried and successfully got lynx back on my system.
That's a major help.  Maybe I was trying this too early and
the files just weren't ready on the ftp servers or the package
lists were mangled?

> General suggestion:  avoid dselect, use apt-get.  You might also find
> capt (console apt) a useful tool.  I generally use it to search for
> packages, but leave the installation for the command line.

ok, so I've heard now from a couple folks that I should avoid
dselect.  It's pretty much been the only way that I'd ever done
any package maintenance on my system (I guess I'm behind the
times).  It's also the only way I've know about availability of
packages, and it was cool that I could just flag them.

Should I now abandon the settings in dselect and no longer run
it?  I had attempted to flag things that I wanted to add to my
system in there (and I have no idea what they were now).

Is there a way to get it synchronized with the apt-get settings,
so I can use it for "shopping" or should I look into "capt" for
that purpose?

Thanks so much for your help!

-Chris