Re: Uninstalling Gnome
On 11/29/2016 8:12 AM, Rodolfo Medina wrote:
I wonder if it's possible to provide Debian a set A of packages and say:
`please install these and only these and remove all the other packages present
on the disk except the ones from which some of A depends.' This would be
equivalent of reinstalling everything as reported by Patrick. Do you think it
would be possible?
Rodolfo
That's a good way to get into trouble. ;)
The list would typically be created on a computer that is set up the way
you want already using....
dpkg --get-selections > package.txt
You can set the install state of all non-essential packages to
'deinstall' with...
dpkg --clear-selections
That's the part that could be trouble if you don't have a good list of
packages to feed back in. What is essential is not necessarily
everything you need to be able to connect to the internet and begin
re-installing things.
If you have your list of packages you can set the install state with
dpkg --set-selections < packages.txt
Synaptic has a way of creating these lists and installing from them,
don't think it cares about the install state of anything not on the
list, also never tried using Synaptic to install from a list that had
package install states other than 'install'.
The list would be in the form of....
package package-state
so for example....
package1 install
package2 deinstall
package3 hold
etc....
Once the install states are set then you would do...
apt-get dselect-upgrade
to perform the installations and removals.
What kind of havoc that would create for aptitude if you try to use it
after doing these things, I don't know. I don't use aptitude.
You could create the list of selections on your current machine and load
it in a text editor and start deleting stuff, after saving an extra copy
somewhere so you can set the selection back the way they were if needed.
Personally I would use Synaptic to remove the stuff you don't want, then
if you still want to use aptitude later, deal with it's issues after the
fact.
Later, Seeker
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