dselect problems too much of what I don't want, nothing of what I need

["Craig Sampson" <craig@psi-aus.com>]

G'day list,

I'm somehow managed to mung the dselect database to a point 
where it wants to uninstall a heap of critical packages and 
install a boatload of stuff I don't want.

I'm uninclined to ferret through the entire dselect package 
listing to try and work out whats happened - it would be far 
quicker to just reinstall Debian (potato).

At this point, what I really need to do is to somehow rebuild 
the dselect database so that it can start afresh (if you like) 
with only those packages that are actually installed.

I've read everything I can get my hands on in the system, also 
on dejanews and debian.org and cannot see any way to stop the 
persistance of package selection/deselection from previous 
dselect instances.

I noticed from my searching of dejanews that this is an often 
asked question, perhaps the 2nd most asked question of all time 
(after 'Is debian any good?') - yet no solutions seem to have 
ever been suggested that don't involve a huge amount of manual 
selection/deselection work.

Anyone got some ideas? 

Cheers,
Craig

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