Re: Return a Debian system to a pristine state

[David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk>]

On Tue 09 Jun 2020 at 09:03:34 (+0300), Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> On Lu, 08 iun 20, 14:32:29, David Wright wrote:
> > 
> > I was impressed by apt-get's performance, probably because of dim
> > memories of how dpkg would react on being asked to install ~2000
> > packages at once. The latter doesn't have the logic for sorting
> > operations into a sequence that preserves an unbroken system.
> 
> It's unclear to me what you meant by that.

Perhaps I can clarify. Just as an experiment, I took a
buster system that had a minimal installation of tasks
"ssh server" and "standard utilities", plus:
etckeeper git git-man patch rsync sudo apt-show-versions aptitude.

I ran the attached file simultaneously requesting 271 packages, and
thereby installing 1558. Everything was installed and configured correctly.
I then reran the attached file but edited: install → purge,
followed by   apt-get --purge autoremove   a couple of times.
After all this, I was back at the original 350 packages that were
present before I ran the attachment. Again, no problem.

> Unless you use one of the --force options (at your own risk, of course) 
> dpkg will refuse actions that go against (Pre-)Depends, Conflicts and 
> Breaks.
> 
> The difference between dpkg and apt in this regard is that dpkg acts 
> only on the set of packages it was provided.

Having cleared the cache before I started the above, I now had the
1558 .deb files sitting in the cache, so to reinstall them I ran
# dpkg -i -R -E /var/cache/apt/archives/.
At the end of that process, the final messages from dpkg were:

  Errors were encountered while processing:
   /var/cache/apt/archives//fvwm-icons_20070101-4_all.deb
   /var/cache/apt/archives//gawk_1%3a4.2.1+dfsg-1_i386.deb
   /var/cache/apt/archives//libmotif-common_2.3.8-2_all.deb
   /var/cache/apt/archives//libxm4_2.3.8-2_i386.deb
   /var/cache/apt/archives//lilypond_2.19.81+really-2.18.2-13_i386.deb
   /var/cache/apt/archives//ntfs-3g_1%3a2017.3.23AR.3-3_i386.deb
   boot-info-script
   fig2dev
   testdisk
   xpdf

Respectively, the 10 errors were: pre-dependency (4 off),
file missing during pre-install, pre-dependency,
gawk missing (2 off), ntfs-3g missing, libxm4 missing.

In addition, this error message occurred during the run:
  systemctl preset failed on ModemManager.service: No such file or directory
There was no problem setting up modemmanager when I was using apt-get.

>     User: dpkg, remove this package
>     dpkg: nope, this will break these other packages
>     User: apt, remove this package
>     apt: sure, in addition these other packages must be removed because 
>     they depend on it
>     User: ok, go ahead
>     apt: dpkg, remove this set of packages
>     dpkg: sure, done
> 
>     User: dpkg, install this package
>     dpkg: nope, it depends on these other packages that are neither 
>     installed nor were provided at the same time
>     User: apt, install this package
>     apt: sure, in addition these other packages must be downloaded and 
>     installed to fulfill dependencies (and recommendations)
>     User: whatever, do it already
>     apt: ok, downloading... done
>     apt: dpkg, install this set of packages
>     dpkg: sure, done

So—the "dim memories": Years ago, when I had to install duplicate
systems on several machines, I would capture the cache from the first
installation on a 1GB Jaz drive, and use it to install the others.
(My systems were considerably smaller then.)

One useful command when doing this was    dpkg --configure -a
whenever dpkg got jammed up, followed by repeating the   dpkg -i
command (which explains using -E above).

Cheers,
David.

apt-get -y install apt-file boot-info-script bootlogd cryptsetup-initramfs dosfstools eject flac gdisk gpm lame lynx mc mlocate normalize-audio mutt p7zip-full p7zip-rar lz4 putty putty-doc python-doc python3-doc python3-ly python3-dateutil python-reportlab dkms paps timidity rename scrot setcd smartmontools sox libsox-fmt-mp3 strace zip tnef unifont uudeview w3m wicd-curses xournal xpdf xzgv gpicview xzoom exim4 exim4-doc-html maildrop swaks fluid-soundfont-gm fluid-soundfont-gs fluidsynth pdftk-java texlive-luatex emacs emacs-common-non-dfsg printer-driver-cups-pdf vim vim-gtk hwdata hwinfo info pinfo inotify-tools inxi lshw di bbe jpeginfo alsa-utils alsaplayer-alsa alsamixergui alsa-tools-gui arandr evince font-manager gwaterfall fvwm fvwm-icons get-flash-videos swisswatch mbr menu mp3info resolvconf ntfs-3g ndiswrapper ndiswrapper-dkms ndiswrapper-source audacious-plugins audacity rosegarden firefox-esr-l10n-en-gb gnumeric tcpdump udisks2 vlock wakeonlan antiword anacron apt-doc aptitude-doc-en apt-rdepends at bash-doc bplay catdoc cdparanoia cdrskin curl dctrl-tools debian-handbook debian-history debian-policy debian-reference-en debian-timeline debian-keyring debootstrap deborphan debsums doc-base efibootmgr elinks gimp gparted parted-doc graphicsmagick grub-rescue-pc testdisk html2text htop inkscape imagemagick-6.q16 imagemagick-6-doc pdf2svg whois xfstt xloadimage debian-installer libreoffice xserver-xorg xinit xterm xcolors xcolorsel xinput inputplug triggerhappy x11-apps xli hexedit vbindiff atomicparsley bluez-obexd bluez-tools obexftp dnsutils docx2txt frescobaldi gsmartcontrol gucharmap gv ghostscript-doc hplip-doc jq libreoffice-help-en-gb libreoffice-l10n-en-gb miscfiles mplayer mplayer-gui mpv ffmpeg ffmpeg-doc texlive-lang-english texlive-music texlive-science texlive-science-doc msort recode recode-doc recoll sqlitebrowser sqlite3-doc ufw uuid-runtime wavemon wbritish wbritish-huge wbritish-insane guvcview xclip xli xkeycaps xorriso zathura zathura-ps xvkbd mupdf ncdu udfclient udftools an read-edid edid-decode avahi-utils debian-security-support texlive-plain-generic texlive-formats-extra fonts-lyx fonts-ricty-diminished texlive-font-utils fonts-rufscript fonts-yanone-kaffeesatz xfonts-efont-unicode-ib fonts-humor-sans fonts-3270 fonts-gfs-didot-classic fonts-ecolier-court ttf-aenigma texlive-fonts-recommended-doc texlive-fonts-extra fonts-oxygen fonts-lobster xfonts-jmk xfonts-terminus-oblique fonts-gfs-baskerville texlive-latex-extra-doc texlive-pictures texlive-fonts-recommended pfb2t1c2pfb fonts-ocr-a fonts-ocr-b texlive-latex-extra preview-latex-style xfonts-75dpi ps2eps fonts-oflb-euterpe ttf-anonymous-pro texlive-fonts-extra-doc fonts-gfs-bodoni-classic fonts-inconsolata xfonts-efont-unicode fonts-hack fonty-rg texlive-pstricks-doc xfonts-terminus texlive-pstricks fonts-ipafont-gothic cm-super-x11 tipa tex-gyre fonts-dkg-handwriting fonts-tiresias fonts-texgyre xfonts-100dpi cm-super tv-fonts texlive-latex-recommended-doc fonts-ecolier-lignes-court fonts-mph-2b-damase fonts-ipafont-mincho xfonts-scalable fonts-ipafont texlive-pictures-doc texlive-latex-recommended fonts-fantasque-sans fonts-liberation2 xfonts-intl-phonetic texlive-extra-utils cm-super-minimal ttf-denemo