Re: Return a Debian system to a pristine state
The Wanderer wrote:
[dd]
>
> The suggestion of 'debfoster', from elsewhere in the thread, seems
> reasonable as well. Although that would then mean that debfoster itself
> would then be included in the list of base packages, which isn't
> necessarily desirable and isn't technically accurate.
Of course it's not necessary. Once I know that such a utility exists, I
have no problem adding it to the list of packages I install first on any
new system (among rsync, lsof, mtree-netbsd, netcat, screen, sockstat,
csearch and many others).
>
> > If on the other hand your real goal is not to achieve package
> > reduction, but instead to *complain* about Debian, well, you've
> > already achieved it.
> >
> > If your real goal is not just to complain about Debian, but rather,
> > to make Debian *change* something arbitrary, just so that you feel
> > powerful, well, good luck with that.
>
> It seems to me that his goal (aside from finding a way to do the "revert
> to pristine state" in his own case) is to persuade people that Debian
> should implement, and in fact if possible should already have
> implemented,
Yes, I kind of expected that this problem had been solved and only my
lack of knowledge prevents me from using a well-known solution.
> a mechanism to make such a pristine-state reversion
> possible in all cases - rather than having it be possible only if the
> user took a particular action, which is not clearly documented or
> suggested for that point, immediately after install.
It is interesting that debfoster "maintains a list of installed packages
that were explicitly requested rather than installed as a dependency."
As a result, its list of unnecessary packages is rather short even long
after the installation. Which is good of course.
>
> While I'm not particularly happy with the tone of his inquiries either,
Sorry if I sounded harsh, this was not my intention (unless I was
already facing an unjustifiedly hostile attitude from a couple of
people).
> and I doubt that I would ever use such a mechanism if it existed, the
> basic idea doesn't seem like a particularly unreasonable one. I think
> your own pushback against it probably goes too far in its own right.
--
Victor Sudakov, VAS4-RIPE, VAS47-RIPN
2:5005/49@fidonet http://vas.tomsk.ru/
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