Re: Return a Debian system to a pristine state
On Fri 29 May 2020 at 21:57:06 (+0700), Victor Sudakov wrote:
> David Wright wrote:
> > Finally, pkg delete -a sounds like something from the abattoir,
> > rather than anything you'd do to a pet (to use your analogy).
>
> It's not as terrible as it sounds ;-) It's more from a vet clinic than
> from a slaughterhouse. You don't lose configs, you don't lose network
> connectivity or remote access during this procedure. You can save a list
> of installed packages before deleting them, and reinstall only those you
> know you need.
>
> Unfortunately, the FreeBSD package system is not as mature as DEB or
> RPM, therefore until very recently the "pkg delete -a" procedure has
> been required to get rid of the dependencey hell.
OK, that sounds more like what people do on Windows systems, where
there's a reset option, except that on Windows you can, ISTR, lose
all your own files if they're under C:.
Debian doesn't work that way: you can remove packages from the system
at will in a controlled manner. Isn't that what sysadmins do?
> > "apt has a bug, cannot believe it!"
> > https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2020/05/msg00567.html
>
> Well, I must admit, I can sympathize with this person's frustration. He
> just got confused among those AutoRemove* advanced options.
I think it's much more than that. The OP appeared to regard the
--no-install-recommends option as a *property* that is applied to each
package installed under that recommendation regime, and that
that property would be preserved for all time. But as the "-install-"
in --no-install-recommends shows, it's just an option for the install
command itself.
> I, too, was surprised by some Debian features like its tendency to start
> daemons with a vanilla configuration right after installation. Still
> can't say I like this decision.
This has been discussed in the past. Using the term "vanilla" suggests
that an ordinary upstream configuration is applied to the daemon,
which is not true: the Debian developers apply what they consider are
sensible secure defaults, designed to integrate with the distribution.
This work is usually documented in changelog.Debian.gz or various
READMEs.
Cheers,
David.
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