Re: Removing desktop environments (Beware! stupid post)
On Mon, Feb 05, 2007 at 05:30:54AM EST, Marcus Blumhagen wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 05, 2007 at 09:54:43AM +0100, wrote:
> > Also debfoster2aptitude (provided by debfoster) might be of interest
> > for you. debfoster2aptitude because debfoster is deprecated by
> > aptitude, but this way you have can migrate your debfoster decision to
> > aptitude. It can be run in interactive mode in a shell. It will then ask
> > you question about the installed packages, whether you intend to keep them
> > or to remove or purge them (default is to purge, but can be overridden by
> > setting "RemoveCmd = apt-get remove" /etc/debfoster.conf) A closer look
> > into the manpage of debfoster provides you with some more information on
> > fine tuning the behaviour when deciding which packages to consider for its
> > questioning, i.e.:
> >
> > debfoster2aptitude --option UseRecommends=no --mark-only
> >
> > will also try to purge packages which actually are only
> > recommended by another installed package (by default debfoster
> > considers recommended packages as real dependencies. And wouldn't
> > purge immediately after finishing asking questions. This is only a little
> > safety net.
> >
> > Important Notice!:
> >
> > Beware of the keys you press in interactive mode! Since it will be a long
> > game of question and answer, and you definitely don't want to
> > press "q" after answering 100+ questions. If you get tired of
> > answering you can postpone the other questions by pressing "x",
> > which will save your answers before exit.
> >
> >
> > If you use apt-get, then "debfoster" is the command to use, but I'd
> > really suggest using aptitude. This way you get aptitude to know which
> > packages are really programs you want and which ones are dependencies,
> > that can be removed, once there is no other package depending on it.
>
> EVEN MORE IMPORTANT NOTICE:
>
> Beware of debfoster2aptitude, as it doesn't quite seem to work as
> I have written. Actually while writing my previous mail I also once
> startet debfoster2aptitude, but 1st it seems not to respect command
> line options as the normal debfoster does, 2nd it immediatly wiped
> out my package selections in aptitude (now all, even essential
> packages are marked "auto" in aptitude, and an "aptitude dist-upgrade"
> attempts to purge all packages marked "auto")
>
> Hope you did not already go to action. I am terribly sorry that I have
> posted this before having checked if it really works as I stated.
Don't worry. I would never dream of blindly following an unknown
party's recommendations unless I fully understand the implications.
Especially something that could potentially screw up my system.
But since your prior post will in future be accessible to all kinds of
folks googling for solutions, it's just as well you complemented it with
this warning.
> After some quick invocations of debfoster it seems to work fine.
> But after some also quick reading it seems that debfoster does not
> use a temporary file when running and instead writes directly to
> the keeperfile, so you should backup your actual /var/lib/apt*
> and /var/lib/debfoster before using debfoster. (But recalling the
> OP I think this advise is superfluous)
> Regards
> Marcus
Thanks,
cga
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