Debian Uninstall Question

Debian Uninstall Question

[Janina Sajka]

Is there a way to remove a related group of applications with apt? Or do
you have to take them out one at a time and do it in the right order
because of the dependencies?

I ask because I have an old Pentium 2 with a fairly small hd, and I need
to take out all the X (except perhaps the Xlibs). The hd is getting full
and this box is too slow for Gnome anyway.

Reply-To: 
X-Operating-System: Linux concerto.rednote.net 2.6.8-1.541.root 
Organization: Capital Accessibility LLC (http://www.CapitalAccessibility.com)
X-PGP-Key: http://www.CapitalAccessibility.com/JaninaSajka_gpg_key.html


-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Chair
				Accessibility Workgroup
				Free Standards Group (FSG)

janina@freestandards.org	Phone: +1 202.494.7040

Re: Debian Uninstall Question

[Thomas Stivers]

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On Sat, Oct 02 2004 at 05:53:22PM -0400, Janina Sajka wrote:
> Is there a way to remove a related group of applications with apt? Or do
> you have to take them out one at a time and do it in the right order
> because of the dependencies?

Here is where dependencies can come in handy. If you remove a package
like xfree86-common apt will remove all the things that depend on it. It
won't work if you just remove x-window-system because it is a virtual
package which depends on other packages but is not itself depended on.
Chances are if you remove the xfree86-server or x-clients-base you'll
take out a lot of what you want to get rid of.

> I ask because I have an old Pentium 2 with a fairly small hd, and I need
> to take out all the X (except perhaps the Xlibs). The hd is getting full
> and this box is too slow for Gnome anyway.

Yeah I don't doubt it. Gnome is really a memory/processor hog.

> Reply-To: 
> X-Operating-System: Linux concerto.rednote.net 2.6.8-1.541.root 
> Organization: Capital Accessibility LLC (http://www.CapitalAccessibility.com)
> X-PGP-Key: http://www.CapitalAccessibility.com/JaninaSajka_gpg_key.html

I think you may have started writing in the middle of your headers.
*chuckle*

- -- 
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan

Thomas Stivers	e-mail: stivers_t@tomass.dyndns.org
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Re: Debian Uninstall Question

[Janina Sajka]

Thanks, Thomas.

With this advice (and the realization that I had kernel source also on
the hd), I've managed to trim things down reasonably well.

But, I'm still befuddled a bit. I try:

dpkg -l

and get a listing of -- what, exactly? I guess I don't understand the
help docs on this. There are packages listed there as installed, but
running apt-get remove on them says "not installed so not removed."

Do I just corrupted tables?

What is the canonical way to get a listing of what's actually installed?

PS: Hopefully, this time I've left my header intact! <grin>

Thomas Stivers writes:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> On Sat, Oct 02 2004 at 05:53:22PM -0400, Janina Sajka wrote:
> > Is there a way to remove a related group of applications with apt? Or do
> > you have to take them out one at a time and do it in the right order
> > because of the dependencies?
> 
> Here is where dependencies can come in handy. If you remove a package
> like xfree86-common apt will remove all the things that depend on it. It
> won't work if you just remove x-window-system because it is a virtual
> package which depends on other packages but is not itself depended on.
> Chances are if you remove the xfree86-server or x-clients-base you'll
> take out a lot of what you want to get rid of.
> 
> > I ask because I have an old Pentium 2 with a fairly small hd, and I need
> > to take out all the X (except perhaps the Xlibs). The hd is getting full
> > and this box is too slow for Gnome anyway.
> 
> Yeah I don't doubt it. Gnome is really a memory/processor hog.
> 
> > Reply-To: 
> > X-Operating-System: Linux concerto.rednote.net 2.6.8-1.541.root 
> > Organization: Capital Accessibility LLC (http://www.CapitalAccessibility.com)
> > X-PGP-Key: http://www.CapitalAccessibility.com/JaninaSajka_gpg_key.html
> 
> I think you may have started writing in the middle of your headers.
> *chuckle*

Re: Debian Uninstall Question

[Luke Yelavich]

On Sun, Oct 03, 2004 at 07:53:22AM EST, Janina Sajka wrote:
> Is there a way to remove a related group of applications with apt? Or do
> you have to take them out one at a time and do it in the right order
> because of the dependencies?

I think it depends on what is in the group of packages you want removed, perhaps
meta packages would be useful in this case, depending on version, I guess.

> I ask because I have an old Pentium 2 with a fairly small hd, and I need
> to take out all the X (except perhaps the Xlibs). The hd is getting full
> and this box is too slow for Gnome anyway.

I think you can simply remove x-window-system and gnome-desktop-environment to
remove the respective sets of packages, however I am not sure whether that would
remove everything, and there is also a chance it will remove packages that you
still might need for other things.

Luke

Re: Debian Uninstall Question

[Cheryl Homiak]

I could be wrong about this, but I recall (at least in unstable0 that 
x-window-system is just a virtual package, and once you have all your X 
installed, removing it really doesn't do anything. the reason I think this 
is because I was trying to get rid of xdm I didn't know if I could do it 
because apt threatened to uninstall x-window-system along with xdm. 
However, somebody told me this was just a virtual package; I went ahead 
and did it and didn't lose any of my X system.
In fact, I just reinstalled recently and had to do the same thing.
As a test just now, I checked with the -u option what would happen if I 
reinstalled xdm and i was told x-window-system would also be installed. 
but my x is up and running, so it appears that my theory about this may be 
right.
I'm not sure if this is the case with most meta-packages; at least in this 
case, the meta-package seems to function for installation but perhaps not 
for removal.


-- 
Cheryl

"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

Re: Debian Uninstall Question

[Cheryl Homiak]

Hi Janina.
I wrote this before but thinking somebody else might have a better answer 
I postponed it. I hope maybe it helps some.

At least on unstable, I can do

apt-get remove gnome2*
and have most if not all of the gnome packages removed. Only if you try to 
add or remove anything with apt-get using the star after the name, make 
sure you look at what it is about to remove so you don't lose more than 
you intended.
I realize this still leaves some x applications; not sure how you would 
handle those.
Tasksel allows you to add groups of packages but not remove them. Dselect 
might allow you to do what you want, but I personally don't find dselect 
very speech or braille friendly--that might just be my preference though. 
I don't know if aptitude would give you any more flexibility than apt-get 
or not.


-- 
Cheryl

"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

Re: Debian Uninstall Question

[Janina Sajka]

Thanks, Cheryl. That got me another package.

I guess I'm finding out there's no way other than to dribble them off
one at a time--or maybe a dozen at a time. I suspect there are quite a
few more there, though.

Oh well. At least the hd isn't starved for meaningful updates at this
point. So the emergency has gone out of the issue at least.

Cheryl Homiak writes:
> Hi Janina.
> I wrote this before but thinking somebody else might have a better answer 
> I postponed it. I hope maybe it helps some.
> 
> At least on unstable, I can do
> 
> apt-get remove gnome2*
> and have most if not all of the gnome packages removed. Only if you try to 
> add or remove anything with apt-get using the star after the name, make 
> sure you look at what it is about to remove so you don't lose more than 
> you intended.
> I realize this still leaves some x applications; not sure how you would 
> handle those.
> Tasksel allows you to add groups of packages but not remove them. Dselect 
> might allow you to do what you want, but I personally don't find dselect 
> very speech or braille friendly--that might just be my preference though. 
> I don't know if aptitude would give you any more flexibility than apt-get 
> or not.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Cheryl
> 
> "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Chair
				Accessibility Workgroup
				Free Standards Group (FSG)

janina@freestandards.org	Phone: +1 202.494.7040

removing X packages was Re: Debian Uninstall Question

[Kenny Hitt]

Hi.  If you use aptitude, it will go much faster.  Since aptitude groups
packages by catagory, you can find all the X packages easily.

Hope this helps.
          Kenny
	  
On Sun, Oct 03, 2004 at 11:54:48AM -0400, Janina Sajka wrote:
> Thanks, Cheryl. That got me another package.
> 
> I guess I'm finding out there's no way other than to dribble them off
> one at a time--or maybe a dozen at a time. I suspect there are quite a
> few more there, though.
> 
> Oh well. At least the hd isn't starved for meaningful updates at this
> point. So the emergency has gone out of the issue at least.

Re: removing X packages was Re: Debian Uninstall Question

[Cheryl Homiak]

I haven't figured out how to use aptitude yet, but I think that's just 
because i haven't bothered yet.


-- 
Cheryl

"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

aptitude was Re: removing X packages

[Kenny Hitt]

Hi.  I like it since it lets me look around the package data base in an
orgonized format.  It also works well with speakup.  Probably one of the
features I like most is the grouping of new packages.  It's cool to see
what has been added to the archive since my last apt-get update.  Of
course, you have to remember to tell aptitude to forget what's new after
you look at them.  If you don't, they will stay in the new group.

          Kenny

On Mon, Oct 04, 2004 at 12:49:52AM -0500, Cheryl Homiak wrote:
> I haven't figured out how to use aptitude yet, but I think that's just 
> because i haven't bothered yet.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Cheryl
> 
> "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: removing X packages was Re: Debian Uninstall Question

[Janina Sajka]

It's not too bad, actually. It's ncurses (I think). In any case, it took
me about 5 minutes to figure out that F10 brings up the toolbar, that ?
brings up help, and that - and _ mark files (or groups) for removal.
Then g starts the task.

This is what I think I know, anyway! <grin>


Cheryl Homiak writes:
> I haven't figured out how to use aptitude yet, but I think that's just 
> because i haven't bothered yet.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Cheryl
> 
> "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Chair
				Accessibility Workgroup
				Free Standards Group (FSG)

janina@freestandards.org	Phone: +1 202.494.7040

Re: removing X packages was Re: Debian Uninstall Question

[Cheryl Homiak]

Hey thanks, Janina.
Just hadn't spent time on it yet.


-- 
Cheryl

"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

Re: removing X packages was Re: Debian Uninstall Question

[Janina Sajka]

Thanks, Kenny.
This is exactly what I was looking for. Well, not quite because I'd
rather do it directly at the shell prompt--but I'm not going to fuss
over that!

Turns out I had most of it. aptitude is removing 22.4mb more data. I do
think this is important though, to prevent future upgrade commands from
slowly teasing X back onto this system. To give myself the best shot
against that I'm asking aptitude to dump all the conf files as well as
the packages associated with X.


Kenny Hitt writes:
> Hi.  If you use aptitude, it will go much faster.  Since aptitude groups
> packages by catagory, you can find all the X packages easily.
> 
> Hope this helps.
>           Kenny
> 	  
> On Sun, Oct 03, 2004 at 11:54:48AM -0400, Janina Sajka wrote:
> > Thanks, Cheryl. That got me another package.
> > 
> > I guess I'm finding out there's no way other than to dribble them off
> > one at a time--or maybe a dozen at a time. I suspect there are quite a
> > few more there, though.
> > 
> > Oh well. At least the hd isn't starved for meaningful updates at this
> > point. So the emergency has gone out of the issue at least.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Chair
				Accessibility Workgroup
				Free Standards Group (FSG)

janina@freestandards.org	Phone: +1 202.494.7040