Got the following a few moments ago when attempting to dist-upgrade:
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
exuberant-ctags geany-plugin-addons geany-plugin-autoclose
geany-plugin-automark geany-plugin-codenav geany-plugin-ctags
geany-plugin-debugger geany-plugin-defineformat geany-plugin-devhelp
geany-plugin-doc geany-plugin-extrasel geany-plugin-gendoc
geany-plugin-geniuspaste geany-plugin-git-changebar geany-plugin-insertnum
geany-plugin-latex geany-plugin-lineoperations geany-plugin-lipsum
geany-plugin-lua geany-plugin-macro geany-plugin-miniscript
geany-plugin-multiterm geany-plugin-numberedbookmarks geany-plugin-overview
geany-plugin-pairtaghighlighter geany-plugin-pg geany-plugin-pohelper
geany-plugin-prettyprinter geany-plugin-prj geany-plugin-projectorganizer
geany-plugin-sendmail geany-plugin-shiftcolumn geany-plugin-spellcheck
geany-plugin-tableconvert geany-plugin-treebrowser
geany-plugin-updatechecker geany-plugin-vc geany-plugin-webhelper
geany-plugin-xmlsnippets intltool-debian libarchive-zip-perl libc-dev-bin
libctpl2 libfile-stripnondeterminism-perl libgit2-24 libgtkspell0
libhttp-parser2.1 libip6tc0 libiptc0 libxatracker2 libxfont2 libxvmc1
linux-libc-dev po-debconf x11-apps x11-session-utils xbitmaps xfonts-100dpi
xfonts-75dpi xfonts-base xfonts-scalable xinit xserver-common
xserver-xorg-core
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
build-essential debhelper dh-autoreconf dh-make dh-strip-nondeterminism
equivs g++ g++-6 geany-plugin-py geany-plugins gufw iptables libc6-dev
libexpat1-dev libpython2.7-dev libstdc++-6-dev libtool ufw xorg xpra
xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
xserver-xorg-input-libinput xserver-xorg-input-mouse
xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse
xserver-xorg-input-void xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-all
xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev xserver-xorg-video-intel
xserver-xorg-video-mach64 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-qxl xserver-xorg-video-r128
xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-savage
xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-trident
xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libldap-common libxfont2
The following packages have been kept back:
libc6 libc6-dbg
The following packages will be upgraded:
binutils clamtk console-setup console-setup-linux cpp devscripts dirmngr
fonts-lyx gcc gir1.2-gtk-3.0 gnupg gnupg-agent gnupg-l10n gnupg2 gpa gpgsm
gpgv gstreamer1.0-plugins-good gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio gtk-update-icon-cache
imagemagick imagemagick-6-common imagemagick-6.q16 keyboard-configuration
libbcmail-java libbcpkix-java libbcprov-java libc-bin libc-dev-bin libc-l10n
libcgi-fast-perl libdebconfclient0 libedit2 libedit2:i386 libgcj-bc
libgcj-common libglib2.0-0 libglib2.0-data libgpgme11 libgtk-3-0
libgtk-3-bin libgtk-3-common libhtml-parser-perl libip4tc0 libip6tc0
libiptc0 libldap-2.4-2 libldap-2.4-2:i386 liblockfile-bin liblockfile1
libmagickcore-6.q16-2 libmagickcore-6.q16-2-extra libmagickwand-6.q16-2
libmwaw-0.3-3 libparams-validationcompiler-perl libpath-tiny-perl libprocps6
libpython2.7 libpython2.7-minimal libpython2.7-stdlib libpython3.5
libpython3.5-minimal libpython3.5-stdlib libruby2.3 libshine3 libshine3:i386
libssl1.1 libustr-1.0-1 libvlc-bin libvlc5 libvlccore8 libxfont1 locales
multiarch-support ntp ntpdate openssl procps python-xapian python2.7
python2.7-minimal python3.5 python3.5-minimal rsyslog ruby-atk
ruby-gdk-pixbuf2 ruby-gio2 ruby-glib2 ruby-gobject-introspection ruby-gtk2
ruby-pango ruby2.3 scrot stunnel4 vivaldi-stable vlc vlc-bin vlc-data
vlc-l10n vlc-plugin-base vlc-plugin-notify vlc-plugin-qt vlc-plugin-samba
vlc-plugin-skins2 vlc-plugin-video-output vlc-plugin-video-splitter
vlc-plugin-visualization vpnc x11-common xfonts-utils xserver-common
xserver-xorg-core
112 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 49 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
Need to get 131 MB of archives.
After this operation, 116 MB disk space will be freed.
So, I cherry-picked and installed most of the upgrades, which went fine. Those upgrades that would have resulted in removed packages, I opted not to upgrade. Rebooted and LightDM now will not start and
startx
would not work, so I have no GUI, which means I can't dist-upgrade at all because network-manager will only work in a GUI.
Lesson learned; next time I encounter something like this I will just wait or at least check here before proceeding.
Note: I run the BunsenLabs distro tracking Debian Unstable.