On Sun, Feb 04, 2007 at 12:40:01PM -0500, cga2000 wrote: > Is there a quick way to remove the gnome and KDE desktop environments > that won't mess up apt..? > If possible I would prefer not to remove a few gtk-based apps such as > gpdf, gimp, and mozilla. You should be able to achieve that goal by using aptitude on command line, i.e.: # aptitude install gnome-desktop-environment- kde- \ desktop-environment- gpdf+ gimp+ mozilla+ But it might be easier to use aptitude's graphical interface. Just start aptitude without arguments. That way you can choose the packages you want to remove and then tell aptitude which packages to keep installed if they were to be removed by removing the desktop environment. You can also do some research in aptitude which packages were chosen automatically by aptitude but offer some alternative dependencies, for example gpdf depends on libice6 *or* xlibs. So maybe aptitude decided to use xlibs which would introduce more dependencies (it even depends on libice6). But you can tell aptitude to use libice6 instead and maybe get an even sleeker solution in the end. > The main objective is to be able to run full system backups that don't > take forever and fit on a single CD-RW. As I read that, I guess you include /usr in your backup, right? IMHO it is unnecessary to do so. the important data is of course in your /home directory and in /etc mostly. If you suffer from a system crash these data would be irrecovarbly lost, so there is a real need for backing those data up. The programs respectivly packages can always be reinstalled and reconfigured by restoring your /etc backup. Long story short, the information which packages need to be installed after system crash can be saved by typing: $ dpkg --get-selections >> software-to-reinstall-after-crash.txt This way you would really save time and could even keep your actual software selection without backing up /etc. My 2¢ on that one Regards Marcus
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