Re: Package upgrades why and how to avoid?
On Sat, 24 Dec 2016 11:47:21 +0900
Man_Without_Clue <love.chaser@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Couple days ago I was trying to general package update by simply "Mark
> All Upgrades" and "Apply" from the Synaptic package manager as I
> usually do.
>
> I noticed the audacious was up-gradable so I simply marked all
> upgrades and tried to install. However I also noticed by doing this
> it will remove other packages such as Skype, and others.
>
> Why this happens and how to avoid this?
>
>
> I guess just simply choosing upgrading all packages is not good idea.
>
The short answer is 'Yes'.
The longer answer is 'Look at the proposed removals. Now go through the
Synaptic Installed (upgradable) list and select some packages, right
click and click 'Mark for Upgrade', and when you have a few selected,
click 'Apply'. If you are warned of removes, clear some marked packages
and try again. You will probably be able to upgrade most packages in a
few cycles of this, but may have to leave a few. After a while, you
will get something of a feel for which packages are responsible for the
proposed removals'
You are using either the unstable or testing distribution, and
sometimes not all packages that form a consistent set are ready for
upgrade at the same time. In that case, you wait a few days until the
upgrade works without removals.
Sometimes, new packages with different names replace old ones, and the
old ones are removed permanently. This is a condition which will not
change after a few days, and again after a while you will learn to
recognise it. Synaptic is not much help here, either the aptitude or
apt-get command line suites will give you much more information about
what is going on.
In short, running either testing or unstable distributions is not a
'fit and forget' operation, they do require a little hand-holding. They
are both continuously upgradeable operating systems, as opposed to
'upgrade to a complete shiny new version with a different number' kinds,
as the stable distribution is. They therefore do require a little care
to keep them in a more-or-less fully operational state at all times.
For future reference, the apt-get and aptitude text commands have
options for permitting removals or not. 'aptitude update', followed by
'aptitude safe-upgrade' will never remove a package (other than the
older versions being upgraded) and 'apt-get update' followed by
'apt-get upgrade' will do much the same. 'aptitude full-upgrade' is the
command to do everything. but it will still warn of removals before
going ahead, and 'apt-get dist-upgrade' again will do much the same.
Synaptic is the GUI front-end to apt-get, and will by default want to
do a 'dist-upgrade'.
--
Joe
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