Re: removing gdb-minimal removed plasma-desktop?

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

On Sun 14 Jan 2024 at 08:54:35 (+0100), Morten Hauke Solvang wrote:
> Short version: "apt remove gdb-minimal" seems to have also removed
> plasma-desktop + a bunch of related packages.
> 
> Curious if there are any good debugging tips for figuring out what
> happened here.
> Or maybe I'm missing something obvious about how apt works, and this
> is expected behavior?
> 
> Yesterday, I was trying to use gdb, and realized I had gdb-minimal
> installed instead of the regular gdb package.
> 
> To fix this, I first ran "apt remove gdb-minimal".
> My assumption was that I then would have to run "apt install gdb".
> But turns out that invoking "gdb" after running "apt remove
> gdb-minimal", I had the full version of gdb installed.
> I didn't think more about it, went on using gdb and later shut down
> the computer.

I'd be interested to know what happens if you (had) run:

  apt install gdb+ gdb-minimal-

(As I don't install DEs, I don't tend to get these complex
dependency problems.)

  $ man apt
  [ … ]
    install, reinstall, remove, purge (apt-get(8))
       Performs the requested action on one or more packages
       specified via regex(7), glob(7) or exact match. The
       requested action can be overridden for specific packages by
       appending a plus (+) to the package name to install this
       package or a minus (-) to remove it.
  [ … ]

Cheers,
David.