Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Wes <davidson@freevolt.org>]

On 2016-06-30, Lisi Reisz wrote:

> I ran
> # aptitude install libreoffice-grammarcheck-en-gb
> and aptitude just carried on without asking as is correct when there
> is only one package; but it proceeded to uninstall my entire desktop
> environment, hundreds of packages.

Both apt-get and aptitude have an option -s (for "simulate").

Instead of actually doing anything, with the -s option
apt-get/aptitude will just pretend to do it (in their characteristically
verbose fashion).

So when I'm not certain what an install or upgrade will do, I first do

# apt-get -s [whatever-thing-I'm-considering-doing-for-real]

-wes

(BTW, sorry for breaking out of the thread; I'm not subscribed to the list.)