Re: How to remove all programs related to a particular task in Woody?
Paul E Condon wrote:
> 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.
It's actually possible to do this too. If you use aptitude for your
initial install, and pick tasks in it, it will keep track of the library
packages and so on that are only depended on or indirectly depended on
by the packages in the tasks you pick. If you then de-select a task as I
describe in my other email, aptitude will offer to remove the packages
that were auto-selected due to packages in that task. So it's not as
hard as you make out.
> 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.
Aptitude apparently does a little bit of reference counting on the
automatically selected packages to handle this.
It really does work, for example:
joey@dragon:~>sudo aptitude dist-upgrade
Password:
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree
Reading extended state information... Done
The following packages are unused and will be REMOVED:
clanlib clanlib-jpeg clanlib-mikmod clanlib-png clanlib-sound
clanlib-vorbis liba52-0.7.3 libdvdnav0
The following NEW packages will be automatically installed:
clanlib2 clanlib2-jpeg clanlib2-mikmod clanlib2-png clanlib2-sound
clanlib2-vorbis gdk-imlib2 liba52-0.7.4 libasound2 libdirectfb-0.9-12
libdvdnav1 libflash0 libpcap0.7 symlinks
The following packages will be automatically REMOVED:
libdirectfb8
The following NEW packages will be installed:
clanlib2 clanlib2-jpeg clanlib2-mikmod clanlib2-png clanlib2-sound
clanlib2-vorbis gdk-imlib2 liba52-0.7.4 libasound2 libdirectfb-0.9-12
libdvdnav1 libflash0 libpcap0.7 symlinks xkobo
The following packages will be REMOVED:
libdirectfb8
The following packages will be upgraded:
aalib1 aalib1-dev apache apache-common apmd apt-build apt-src aumix
autoconf autoconf2.13 bin86 binutils cmt cvs debconf debconf-doc
debconf-utils debhelper debootstrap defendguin defendguin-data devfsd
dhcp-client docbook docbook-dsssl docbook-xml dput esound fcmp
fortune-mod fortunes-min freecraft gdb gettext gettext-base glibc-doc
gnome-bin gnome-libs-data grub grub-doc heroes-common heroes-sdl
html2text iftop imagemagick kernel-package leafnode less lesstif1
liballegro4 libapm-dev libapm1 libart2 libdb2 libdb3 libdb3-dev
libdvdnav-dev libfreetype6 libgcc1 libgdk-pixbuf2 libglade-gnome0
libglade0 libgnome32 libgnomesupport0 libgnomeui32 libgnorba27
libgnorbagtk0 libgtkxmhtml1 libid3tag0 libldap2 libmad0 libmagick5
libpng2 libpng3 libpng3-dev librpm4 libseal-dev libseal1 libssl0.9.6
libwrap0 libxine0 libxml2 linda linux-wlan-ng man-db mawk modutils mutt
ogle-mmx opalmod openssl pcmcia-cs pcmcia-source perl-doc pingus
pingus-data powermanga powermanga-data ppp pump reportbug rpm sgml-base
tcpd tcpdump textutils timidity vim vrms w3m-ssl whois xbubble xchat
xchat-common xine-dvdnav xine-ui xlib6g xmms-cdread zsh
119 packages upgraded, 15 newly installed, 9 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 52.1MB/70.2MB of archives. After unpacking 8182kB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/e/d/v/action/?]
Here of course it is discarding some old library packages that were
installed earlier because some of the stuff I'm upgrading used to
depend on them.
--
see shy jo
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