[Novalug] "aptitude" wants to remove kernel-image

Sam Rosenfeld sam1@speakeasy.net
Sat Sep 1 18:39:32 EDT 2007





On Sat, 1 Sep 2007, Jay Berkenbilt wrote:

> Sam Rosenfeld <sam1@speakeasy.net> wrote:
>
> > When I try to install (Debian 3.1) any uninstalled executable (e.g.,
> > aptitude install mbmon), I get the following error message:  [REMOVE,
> > NOT USED] kernel-image-2.6.8-3-386.
> >
> > Then, after a listing of all the dependencies (way too many -- a few
> > hundred) another, more dire, error message advises that terrible
> > things may happen if the kernel-image is removed.  Using dpkg offers
> > no improvement.
> >
> > Any suggestions?
>
> There are several things that could be going on here.  For one thing,
> kernel-image became linux-image at some point, but I can't remember
> whether it was before or after 3.1.  If before, then this could be a
> remnant of having upgraded from a pre-sarge system.  If after, then
> this is probably irrelevant.
>
> In any case, aptitude maintains a list of automatically installed
> packages which it tries to remove when they no longer have any reverse
> dependencies.  You can override its list.  You could try
>
> aptitude unmarkauto kernel-image
>
> or even the more specific
>
> aptitude unmarkauto kernel-image-2.66.8-3-386
>
> It's a little surprising that you're running that kernel image.  Do
> you actually have a 386?  If you have a Pentium Pro or newer, you
> should probably be using the 686 kernel image.  You could try
> installing linux-image-686 which should give you the latest
> appropriate Linux kernel image for 686.  Again, I can't remember
> whether that feature came about before or after sarge was released.
>
> Ultimately, if you decide which kernel you want, you can install it
> explicitly with aptitude install.  Anything you specifically install
> with aptitude will be automatically marked as a manually installed
> package, and aptitude will not offer to remove it because it is
> unused.
>
> This problem in general happens if you installed or maintained your
> system with apt-get and then switched to aptitude.  You will find that
> aptitude will want to remove lots of packages that you really need
> because it doesn't have past record of what was automatically
> installed.  For my systems, I found that the best policy was to avoid
> using aptitude and to stick with apt-get until I had a chance to
> reinstall from scratch.  Once I reinstalled all my systems from
> scratch with etch (4.0), I switched to only using aptitude.  Now that
> I am fully converted, I find aptitude's ability to remove obsolete
> packages to be a great help, but it only works properly if you only
> use aptitude.
>
> You could probably manage by going through and using unmarkauto on
> many packages, but it would be hard even for a very seasoned debian
> person to really know which ones should be unmarked.
>
> --Jay
>

Over the past year or two I have noticed increasing problems with
apt-get and aptitude, at least.  Your simple and terse comments
(above) would have been a gift that would have saved me many hours of
work.  But, the problem with my current system is that I have not
disciplined myself to be careful of changing /etc/ files (and other
important ones, too).  I would use the information you provided
(above) if the only problems were with the package manager.  But, in
addition, sound, video, printing, and more also continue to plague me.

Is my best option to get a virgin hard drive and install debian from
scratch?  I don't need any particularly "custom" installation, other
than a listing of my hardware.

sam



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