Re: How to remove all programs related to a particular task in Woody?

[Paul E Condon <pecondon@quiknet.com>]

On Tue, Aug 20, 2002 at 04:18:58PM +0530, Ananda Murthy R S wrote:
> Hi:
> 
> How to remove all programs related to a task in Woody? In other words,
> how to do the reverse operation done by tasksel?
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Anand
> 
> 

This sounds like a question that ought to have a simple answer, but it
doesn't have one. Removing all packages that are specified as required
by a tasksel item is not really what you want to do. You want to
remove all packages _except_ those that are also required by some
other package(s) that you are keeping. There is quite a literature
discussing problems of this type in journals on relational
database. There are many published papers, but no consensus as to a
solution that is concise, well defined, unambiguous and easy to
use. (No flames, please. If you really have one, write a paper and get
it published by the ACM or other serious journal. And, send me a
pre-print. I'd like to know.) 

If tasksel kept a list of which packages it had to install that would
be part of a solution, because it could avoid removing those that were
already there when tasksel was run. But it would not cover keeping
packages that are required by another top level package that was
installed _after_ the installation of the package that is being
removed. 



Paul

-- 
Paul E Condon           
pecondon@quiknet.com