[Gllug] dselect problems

[itsbruce at uklinux.net]

On Tue, Jul 16, 2002 at 02:06:51PM +0100, mriscott at yahoo.co.uk wrote:
> I wondered if there was any way to get dselect to tell you what it was about
> to do before it started to remove packages (similar to what it does on
> install). I had a look at the manpage and the on-line help, but I couldn't
> find anything - am I just being dense?

Are you using Potato or Woody?  If the latter, switch to aptitude.  Much
better interface.

In either case, when you mark a package for removal, any packages that
depend on it will be flagged up.  In dselect this means that if you exit
the package selection level, you will find yourself in a further package
selection level where you need to either assent to the suggested changes
or make your own set of new selections and deselections to resolve
things.  If that creates further conflicts you will find yourself in
another set of screens and so on, until there are no remaining
ambiguities..

If dselect is trying to uninstall things or install things unbidden,
this is the result of other, previous selections in previous dselect or
apt-get operations.  The Debian package database keeps a record of the
desired state of packages as well as their actual state.

So if, for example, you had previously made some selections/deselections
in dselect and exited without putting them into action, they will wait
patiently for the next time you go into dselect and choose the Install
option.

So you need to go back to the Selection screen in dselect and look at
the requested states as well as the action state.

Alternatively, you could do

	dpkg --get-selections > selections

edit the results to match what you want and then

	dpkg --set-selections < selections

Or use aptitude, which makes it much easier to browse the package lists.

-- 
Bruce


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