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Author Topic:  apt autoremove - careful  (Read 2942 times)

Offline GoinEasy9

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apt autoremove - careful
« on: 2021/09/20, 06:21:56 »
After doing my full-upgrade I usually run apt autoremove. I've been doing my upgrades like this for years without incident. This time autoremove destroyed my install. It's not like we weren't warned about using autoremove way back in the sidux days, but, I became comfortable using it and didn't check what it was going to do carefully. So, I had to reinstall my siduction kde install.

BTW - There's a thread on the debian-kde mailing list about dist-upgrade causing the same damage my autoremove caused. Whether doing a dist-upgrade or autoremove, seeing that it wants to remove plasma-desktop should be a clue.
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Offline unklarer

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Re: apt autoremove - careful
« Reply #1 on: 2021/09/20, 09:18:36 »
https://forum.siduction.org/index.php?topic=8393.0

I assume you missed this thread.

I always use the du and the autoremove and have for years. No mistakes. I just have to read...   :D

Offline finotti

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Re: apt autoremove - careful
« Reply #2 on: 2021/09/20, 16:18:53 »
After doing my full-upgrade I usually run apt autoremove. I've been doing my upgrades like this for years without incident. This time autoremove destroyed my install. It's not like we weren't warned about using autoremove way back in the sidux days, but, I became comfortable using it and didn't check what it was going to do carefully. So, I had to reinstall my siduction kde install.

BTW - There's a thread on the debian-kde mailing list about dist-upgrade causing the same damage my autoremove caused. Whether doing a dist-upgrade or autoremove, seeing that it wants to remove plasma-desktop should be a clue.

For future reference, you can look at /var/log/dpkg.log and see what was removed and reinstall.

Offline tommy2

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Re: apt autoremove - careful
« Reply #3 on: 2021/09/20, 16:51:41 »
The problem must be related to KDE as my XFCE and X-org "Fluxbox" went without a problems.

Offline GoinEasy9

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Re: apt autoremove - careful
« Reply #4 on: 2021/09/20, 17:00:31 »
Yes unklarer, while I usually do a translate to all Upgrade Warnings that aren't in English, I certainly missed this one.

Thanks finotti, but I spent an hour reinstalling everything that autoremove logged, and the result was a very damaged desktop. I gave up trying to fix it.

Thanks for the responses ... heh, lesson learned. I guess you CAN teach an old dog new tricks. :-)
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Offline DeepDayze

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Re: apt autoremove - careful
« Reply #5 on: 2021/09/20, 18:41:27 »
Plain autoremove should leave the config files intact unless you used the purge option with autoremove which will remove all traces, thus reinstalling the removed packages will merely install default configs.

So yes it's wise to double check to see what's being autoremoved just like with what's being removed via a DU.

Offline sunrat

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Re: apt autoremove - careful
« Reply #6 on: 2021/09/26, 01:20:47 »
Time to make a backup image of your system so you can restore it in a few minutes rather than however many hours it takes to reinstall and configure to your liking. I use fsarchiver but there are a few other decent programs for backups.

Offline tranquil

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Re: apt autoremove - careful
« Reply #7 on: 2021/10/24, 19:38:15 »
After doing my full-upgrade I usually run apt autoremove. I've been doing my upgrades like this for years without incident.
I only run autoremove when there's packages flagged as no longer required and making sure they're really no longer required.  ;)
Dual-booting Debian Stable and Unstable with Openbox window manager and Tint2 panel.

Offline DeepDayze

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Re: apt autoremove - careful
« Reply #8 on: 2021/10/24, 19:47:55 »
Yes a good idea to doublecheck as some other package may need the package being autoremoved.