Aptitude Wants to Delete/Remove Way Too Much
I did an update in aptitude last night, and it now wants to remove
most of my system "because they are no longer used" or "due to
unsatisfied dependencies." Since some of those packages are used
every day, I must have broken something. I have not let aptitude
actually upgrade/uninstall anything yet. I am looking for advise on
how to reset aptitude's memory of actions to some safe state.
I'll cut-and-paste as much of my aptitude session as possible toward
the bottom of this e-mail. I have two theories about what went
wrong, maybe both:
(1) Before I started the download, I marked some packages as being
automatically installed. I do this regularly, to weed out things
that aren't really used. I also do this very carefully, but all of
the packages to be removed are flagged "idA", and the "A" does mean
automatic. BTW, I also asked to install "mozilla-firefox".
(2) After the download, I chose to "pin" some packages with bug
reports. I assumed this would "hold" them. Now many packages are
reported with broken dependencies.
Overnight, I let aptitude download all of the upgraded deb files. I
estimate that 40% failed, because aptitude reported it took about 6
hours, but it would have taken about 10 for everything.
I did not have aptitude in download-only mode, so this morning,
after it downloaded, aptitude fetched the bug reports. There were a
lot. Since some seemed unpleasant, I chose to "pin" all of them.
Nothing installed, nothing uninstalled. This was not alarming,
since I might have pinned (held?) a low-level library. So I
examined the list of bug reports more carefully, and decided that
all I really only needed to hold my current perl version.
I went back into aptitude, intending to "unhold" what I had
"pinned". But I immediately noticed that two lists are huge:
"Packages being removed because they are no longer used" and
"Packages being deleted due to unsatisfied dependencies." This was
true before I tried to mark anything for reinstallation (that is, to
remove the hold request) by hitting "+".
I tried to reinstall all "Packages being held back", but three
indicate they have broken dependencies ("iB" flags): g++,
libsdl-mixer1.2 and perl-modules.
I tried to mark some of my important packages to be reinstalled.
This works for some, such as openoffice.org, whose flags change to
"iu", and whose supporting packages change to "iuA". But for
others, such as cupsys, the flags change to "iB", indicating that
they have broken dependencies.
Strangely, "perl" is not listed as one of the packages being
changed. It is listed under "Installed Packages" with the "iB"
flag. Its only unsatisfied dependency is "perl-base", which I can
successfully mark for reinstall.
Is there a safe way to reset all of these actions? I doubt
that I should play with the /etc/apt/prefernces or
/var/lib/aptitude/pkgstates files.
Thanks,
David Crane
========================
Here is the portion of the aptitude session where I chose to "pin"
the packages with bug reports:
========================
$ sudo aptitude
(Reading database ... 86317 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing python2.3-numeric-ext ...
Removing atlas2-base ...
Removing liblualib40 ...
Removing liblua40 ...
Removing libtolua0 ...
Removing libttf2 ...
Removing pathological-music ...
Removing python2.3-numeric ...
Removing xlibs-pic ...
Press return to continue.
Reading package fields... Done
Reading package status... Done
Retrieving bug reports... Done
critical bugs of cupsys (1.1.20final-14 -> 1.1.20final-16) <done>
#238800 - cupsys: cgi-bin/printers.cgi crash
critical bugs of ucf (0.27 -> 0.30) <done>
#237944 - ucf: Variable errors in ucf script breaks lm-sensors installation
critical bugs of debianutils (2.6.2 -> 2.7.2) <done>
#235123 - debianutils: sparc binaries are 64-bit
critical bugs of g++-3.3 (1:3.3.3-0pre3 -> 1:3.3.3-1) <done>
#238621 - [PR 14640] [3.3.4 regression] miscompilation of mozilla-firefox (deallocator problems?)
grave bugs of fontconfig (2.2.1-13 -> 2.2.1-16) <done>
#236756 - fontconfig: postinst script fails
grave bugs of mozilla-firefox (-> 0.8-3) <done>
#238705 - mozilla-firefox: postinstall script failure
#238762 - mozilla-firefox: Fails to start
grave bugs of initrd-tools (0.1.57 -> 0.1.62) <done>
#237160 - mkinitrd apparently no longer generates working initrd.img files
grave bugs of cupsys (1.1.20final-14 -> 1.1.20final-16) <done>
#238763 - Error during post-ins of the package (during kill of running cupsys)
grave bugs of libxml2 (2.6.5-1 -> 2.6.6-1) <done>
#236546 - libxml2: Install Problem: Trying to overwrite file owned by a different package
grave bugs of kdepim-kfile-plugins (4:3.1.4-1 -> 4:3.1.5-1.1) <done>
#227759 - [CAN-2003-0988] kdepim-kfile-plugins: VCF file information reader arbitrary code execution vulnerability
grave bugs of korganizer (4:3.1.4-1 -> 4:3.1.5-1.1) <done>
#236469 - korganizer: Crash when starting. Won't start at all.
critical bugs of libmailtools-perl (1.59-1 -> 1.60-1) <open>
#168381 - libmailtools-perl: mailx called from libmailtools-perl processes commands in emails
critical bugs of debianutils (2.6.2 -> 2.7.2) <open>
#238816 - debianutils: run-parts now barfs on files that used to work fine
grave bugs of perl (5.8.2-2 -> 5.8.3-2) <open>
#220486 - perl-suid: suidperl security
#231082 - spamassassin: spamc hangs since most recent perl package updates for stable
grave bugs of libsdl1.2debian (1.2.6-2 -> 1.2.7-1) <open>
#220407 - libsdl1.2debian: When playing SDL based games, the mouse pointer goes down and right.
Summary:
fontconfig(1 bug), mozilla-firefox(2 bugs), initrd-tools(1 bug), cupsys(2 bugs), perl(2 bugs), libxml2(1 bug), kdepim-kfile-plugins(1 bug), libsdl1.2debian(1 bug), libmailtools-perl(1 bug), debianutils(2 bugs), ucf(1 bug), g++-3.3(1 bug), korganizer(1 bug)
Are you sure to install/upgrade these packages? [Y/n/?/...] ?
y - continue the apt installation.
n - stop the apt installation.
<num> - query the specified bug number (uses querybts).
r - redisplay bug lists.
p <pkg..> - make pkgs pinned: need to restart apt to enable.
p - make all the above pkgs pinned. need to restart.
i <num> - make bug_number <num> ignored.
? - print this help.
w - display bug lists in html (uses sensible-browser).
Are you sure to install/upgrade these packages? [Y/n/?/...] p
The following 13 packages will be pinned or on hold:
g++-3.3, libmailtools-perl, libxml2, ucf, korganizer, cupsys, initrd-tools, perl, libsdl1.2debian, debianutils, kdepim-kfile-plugins, mozilla-firefox, fontconfig
Are you sure [Y/n]? Y
Newly instllation package 'mozilla-firefox' ignored
g++-3.3 libmailtools-perl libxml2 ucf korganizer cupsys initrd-tools perl libsdl1.2debian debianutils kdepim-kfile-plugins mozilla-firefox fontconfig pinned by adding Pin preferences in /etc/apt/preferences. You need to restart apt to enable
Are you sure to install/upgrade these packages?[N/?/...]
****************************************************************************
****** Exit with an error by force in order to stop the installation. ******
****************************************************************************
E: Sub-process if dpkg -s apt-listbugs | grep -q '^Status: .* ok installed'; then /usr/sbin/apt-listbugs apt || ( test $? -ne 10 || exit 10; echo 'Warning: apt-listbugs exited abnormally, hit any key to continue.' 1>&2; read a < /dev/tty ); fi returned an error code (10)
E: Failure running script if dpkg -s apt-listbugs | grep -q '^Status: .*ok installed'; then /usr/sbin/apt-listbugs apt || ( test $? -ne 10 || exit 10; echo 'Warning: apt-listbugs exited abnormally, hit any key to continue.' 1>&2 ; read a < /dev/tty ); fi
Ack! Something bad happened while installing packages. Trying to recover:
Press return to continue.
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