Re: apt-get doesn't upgrade, but synaptic does
On Sat, 12 Apr 2014, PaulNM wrote:
>
> On 04/11/2014 09:28 PM, Patrick Bartek wrote:
> > On Fri, 11 Apr 2014, PaulNM wrote:
> >
> >> On 04/11/2014 12:04 AM, Patrick Bartek wrote:
> [snip]
> > Fine. Everything is installed. Now, sometime later, I want to
> > uninstall or purge libreoffice from the system. 'apt-get purge
> > libreoffice' won't do it. I've done tests, and as far as I can tell
> > little or nothing is removed. It seems the only way is to
> > uninstall/purge each component individually and/or by using
> > wildcards.
>
> That's because the component is a dependency of something else,
> On a testing VM I have:
>
> "sudo apt-get purge libreoffice" purges libreoffice
In my case, it seems that only the libreoffice metapackage is removed
which is what I expected based of past experience.
> then
>
> "sudo apt-get autoremove"
> removes fonts-sil-gentium fonts-sil-gentium-basic
> libreoffice-report-builder-bin
In my case, autoremove removes nothing as nothing of libreoffice has
been uninstalled.
> One of the things "left behind" is libreoffice-writer, but:
>
> paul@debguis2:~$ aptitude why libreoffice-writer
> i gnome Depends libreoffice-writer | abiword (>= 2.8)
>
> See, libreoffice-writer is needed by gnome. When I remove gnome,
> libreoffice-writer (along with a bunch of other packages) wants to be
> removed by an autoremove run.
In my case, it seems that libreoffice modules are dependencies of
each other. And as nothing of libreoffice is uninstalled, there are no
orphaned dependencies for autoremove to remove. Circular Dependencies?
I can uninstalled libreoffice by manually naming each module which is
what I ultimately chose to do. I also could have
apt-get purge libreoffice-*
but I was wary of such a brute force method even though in this case --
I tested it -- it worked without breaking anything. And autoremove
cleaned up the rest of the dependencies without breaking anything.
> Libreoffice is a bad example for this because alot of things use parts
> of it. Removing kde-full results in over 500 packages being removed on
> the "apt-get autoremove" run afterwards.
Actually, libreoffice is the perfect example. It point out the
major flaw in uninstalling large applications that have multiple
modules, multiple dependencies, and use metapackages to install them.
Uninstalling should be as easy as installing.
>
> >
> > Wouldn't it make sense for the metapackage to uninstall as well? It
> > would certainly make things easier.
> >
>
> No, because there's no way for the metapackage to know if any of the
> packages are dependencies of something else, or are otherwise needed
> (manually installed). That's the job of the package manager.
Smarter package manager then?
> If you really want to be sure, look into gtkorphan/deborphan. That'll
> also be useful on older installs that started before apt kept track of
> whether a package was automatically installed or not.
deborphan. Haven't heard that name in a long time. Had forgotten
about it.
All I want is just an easy way to purge/uninstall applications. I
like to test things that come down the pike. So, I install a lot of
stuff, 90% of which will be removed after a few days or weeks. I now
do this testing is VMs -- used to multiboot -- that duplicate my working
system. So, virtual hard drive space is very limited. Thus the need for
easy uninstalls.
I guess for now, I just have to do it piece by piece.
Anyway, thanks for the response.
B
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