Ahoj,
Dňa Sat, 7 Jun 2014 09:48:44 +0200 Thierry de Coulon
<tcoulon@decoulon.ch> napísal:
> Hello all,
>
> I've lived for years using synaptic and I am no so used to aptitude -
> and I don't want to make mistakes...
>
> Possibly my installation is now in such a state that I should
> reinstall, but everything *is* working. Anyway:
>
> - searching for broken packages gives 0 packages in synatiptic but 6
> packages in aptitude.
>
> - marking upgradable packages causes both to want to remove lots of
> things (including parts of cups, Gimp, and of cours all my DE).
>
> - If I try to update with aptitude it gives me a liste of packages
> that should be "removed because they are no more used", which is
> nonsense because most of them ARE in current use.
I tried Synaptic some years ago and i decide to don't use it, mostly
due style by which it works with dependencies (don't matter if Depends,
Suggests or Recommends), where it wasn't marks installed dependencies
as automatically installed, nor removes the packages which are not
needed more (by other packages).
You need to learn one thing - the "A" mark in the aptitude, eg (rest
of lines removed):
i libpam0g-dev
i A libpam0g
^^^
The highlighted "A" flag stand for automatically installed (as
dependency of some other package) package. When all packages (which
depends on automatically installed one) are removed (uninstalled), then
the automatically installed package is removed too.
Because Synaptic don't care about this dependency uninstall, then now
you have a lot packages marked with "A", but they seems as not needed
any more – which can be false, as you can see in the gimp case (IMO
by some meta-package uninstall).
Don't afraid, simple go to the e.g. gimp line and press the "+" key
(install) - it removes the "A" flag (and possible mark for update by
the "u" flag). It takes osme work until you repair these dependencies
relations, but it is safe - until you don't press the second "g". To
clean list of changes (the list before installation), you can simple
more time switch back ("q") and go ("g").
There can be useful the "Cancel pending actions" item in menu
"Actions", it unmarks all install/uninstall (perhaps the hold too)
actions on all packages, but preserves the "A" flag, then you can
continue play with "A" from the clean state.
Finally, you can maintain the "A" flag by the "M" and/or "m" keys,
which switch the "A" flag on/off.
Hope this help you.
--
Slavko
http://slavino.sk
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