apt wants to auto-remove all my system!!!

I actually think I know what makes this happen. I traced the problem to the conflict of "libqt4-core libqt4-gui libqt4-qt3support" with "kdelibs5 kdelibs5-dev libqt4-core-kdecopy libqt4-debug-dev-kdecopy libqt4-dev-kdecopy libqt4-gui-kdecopy"

And BTW., this *IS* a problem. It is time now to start working on KDE4 :)

Thanks for your bugreport.

This sounds like kubuntu-desktop was removed. If you installed before the beta (from e.g. a knot cd) then this results in these strange auto-remove suggestions.

As a workaround, you can remove /var/lib/apt/extended_states

Please confirm that my assumptions are correct that this is a knot-X install.

Cheers,
 Michael

On Monday 09 October 2006 14:17, Michael Vogt wrote:
> Thanks for your bugreport.
>
> This sounds like kubuntu-desktop was removed. If you installed before
> the beta (from e.g. a knot cd) then this results in these strange auto-
> remove suggestions.
>
> As a workaround, you can remove /var/lib/apt/extended_states
see my later comments. Reinstalling the qt4 libs and *then* reinstalling
kubuntu-desktop helped. So, I'm safe for now but this still is a significant
problem and it needs to be handled (otherwise, lots of KDE devs will have to
move away from Edgy).
>
> Please confirm that my assumptions are correct that this is a knot-X
> install.
Nope, it's the latest beta of edgy.
>
> Cheers,
> Michael
>
> ** Changed in: apt (Ubuntu)
> Status: Unconfirmed => Needs Info

Thanks for this additional information.

Could you please tell me what:
$ sudo apt-get autoremove kubuntu-desktop

outputs for you? What it suggests for removal?

I'm pretty sure this is a bug from the installer when it marked all packages depending on kubuntu-desktop as auto-installed. It should have been fixed for beta, but I will check with a fresh kubuntu install to be sure.

Cheers,
 Michael

> Could you please tell me what:
> $ sudo apt-get autoremove kubuntu-desktop
>
> outputs for you? What it suggests for removal?

gsasha@pensar:/tmp/restore$ sudo apt-get autoremove kubuntu-desktop
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer
required:
  xserver-xorg libmpich1.0c2 ksystemlog libsdl1.2debian libsdl1.2debian-alsa
krdc libopenobex-1.0-0 krfb kscd kppp konversation
  kubuntu-default-settings ttf-devanagari-fonts ksim kcharselect pnm2ppa
kregexpeditor kdessh kdeprint adept-manager ksvg kscreensaver
  cdparanoia xfonts-scalable openoffice.org-impress kwin ttf-punjabi-fonts
kaffeine-xine libsensors3 wvdial ttf-indic-fonts
  libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 kio-locate intltool-debian libk3b2 libpythonize0
vorbis-tools libqt4-debug-kdecopy openoffice.org-draw smbclient
  ttf-thai-tlwg ttf-kochi-mincho ksnapshot liblockdev1 kdebluetooth kooka
iso-codes doc-base libkipi0 avahi-daemon wlassistant cdrecord
  ttf-mgopen libflac++5c2 fortunes-min fftw2 openoffice.org-kde
app-install-data libwvstreams4.2-base adept-installer unzip libkexif1
  kfloppy ttf-kannada-fonts ttf-gentium kdegraphics-kfile-plugins
konqueror-nsplugins python-libxml2 gwenview bluez-cups libpoppler1-qt
  libtdb1 readahead scrollkeeper adept-updater hpijs dvd+rw-tools
kdepim-kio-plugins brltty kcalc screen hwdb-client-kde libapm1 bc hplip
  acpi qca-tls dc libmimelib1c2a klipper kubuntu-artwork-usplash po-debconf
kontact libslp1 kdeadmin-kfile-plugins
  linux-headers-2.6.17-10-386 linuxprinting.org-ppds linux-headers-386
ksmserver ksysguard powernowd adept-batch fortune-mod libgpod0
  kde-icons-mono libcurl3-gnutls ttf-lao dcraw foomatic-db-engine
kubuntu-desktop kmenuedit libmdbtools toshset ttf-kochi-gothic
  pykdeextensions adept ksplash-engine-moodin libnss-mdns
kubuntu-konqueror-shortcuts khexedit ksplash kedit apmd foomatic-db-hpijs
kaffeine
  xfonts-75dpi skim vbetool korganizer k3b kdenetwork-kfile-plugins librecode0
kbstate akregator kio-apt acpid kwin-style-crystal gettext
  diveintopython libmusicbrainz4c2a arts python-qt4 ark laptop-mode-tools
libexif-dev libgphoto2-2-dev ttf-gujarati-fonts kcron
  libjasper-runtime powermgmt-base hwdb-client-common adept-common libgmp3c2
kde4libs-data openoffice.org-math xfonts-base libksieve0
  ttf-telugu-fonts digikam amarok-xine ttf-tamil-fonts libbrlapi1
libgutenprint2 kdf kdm speedcrunch openoffice.org libkpimidentities1
  amarok libskim0 kpf bogofilter-bdb libdirectfb-0.9-24 ssl-cert kdnssd
python-dbus cupsys-driver-gutenprint kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins
  katapult poster libao2 kdenetwork-filesharing ttf-arphic-uming kubuntu-docs
knotes bogofilter powermanagement-interface libtunepimp3
  kde-guidance libifp4 debtags fping ttf-malayalam-fonts libgsl0 khelpcenter
apt-index-watcher landscape-client libkpimexchange1
  gtk2-engines-gtk-qt xfonts-100dpi cdrdao xcursor-themes kmailcvt
acpi-support rdiff-backup foo2zjs ttf-arphic-ukai knetworkconf ksysguardd
  konq-plugins libkmime2 libwvstreams4.2-extras libdaemon0 smartdimmer
language-selector-qt zip libxplc0.3.13 language-selector-common ...

confirmed from a duplicate.

On a small system (1GB CF card as root disk), I wanted to remove all the unneeded video drivers. So, I do:

 apt-get remove xserver-xorg-video-via xserver-xorg-video....

In response, apt correctly removes the meta-package xserver-xorg.

Apt then decides (again correctly) that the xserver-xorg-video-ati driver (the one I actually need) was "automatically installed", and offers to remove it. [I decline]

So far, apt has been slightly too helpful, but it has done the right thing.

I now want to tell apt "You know that video driver you installed automatically for me? Well, I really explicitly want it". Thus:

  apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-ati

It's already present, so apt doesn't need to download/install it. But it *should* have changed the status of the ati-driver from "automatically installed" to "explicitly requested". However, it doesn't do so.

In order to stop apt from offering to auto-remove this driver, I had to manually remove it, and then manually re-install it. I think this is a bug. [Fortunately, Linux doesn't seem to mind if you delete a driver while it's currently in use, as long as you put it back again!]

This has happened numerous times on this system.

Needless to say I've had to reinstall. It screwed up the system a couple times already. I do something like 'hmm, I don't have a sound card so I don't need amarok' and so I apt-get remove amarok and it erases kubuntu desktop, everything. It seems to be triggered anytime I remove anything that comes with the kubuntu-desktop package. Maybe the system doesn't realise that kubuntu desktop is needed by other packages or something (I dont know how the packages work, tbh).

In one case it even removed my network connectivity stuff and I couldn't even apt-get to fix it because apt-get update failed (no connectivity).

Somehow, it thinks that nothing is referencing kubuntu desktop if you remove any component of it.

I just gave this a test.

I installed kubuntu-desktop: sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

I waited until it was all done

I removed amarok:

sudo apt-get remove amarok.

It offered to remove kubuntu-desktop for me. I told it 'uh, ok' and boom, all gone.
Its not even listed under 'atuomatically installed'. It says
"The following packages will be REMOVED:" and lists kubuntu-desktop under there! This is after already deleting the extended_states file as mentioned here.

Thank goodness that this time I had ubuntu desktop installed as a backup...

Nick Lawson wrote:
> I just gave this a test.
>
> I installed kubuntu-desktop: sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop
>
> I waited until it was all done
>
> I removed amarok:
>
> sudo apt-get remove amarok.
>
> It offered to remove kubuntu-desktop for me. I told it 'uh, ok' and boom, all gone.
> Its not even listed under 'atuomatically installed'. It says
> "The following packages will be REMOVED:" and lists kubuntu-desktop under there! This is after already deleting the extended_states file as mentioned here.
>
> Thank goodness that this time I had ubuntu desktop installed as a
> backup...
>

kubuntu-desktop is a meta-package anyway so removing it wont affect your
system at all.

But its still a problem that apt-get doesnt know how to handle
dependencies correctly. As a temporary solution, I would tell you to use
aptitude, which works perfectly on my system (ubuntu-desktop) and which
is supposed to be the new generation apt tool :)

iKs.

iKs wrote:
> kubuntu-desktop is a meta-package anyway so removing it wont affect your
> system at all.
>
> But its still a problem that apt-get doesnt know how to handle
> dependencies correctly. As a temporary solution, I would tell you to use
> aptitude, which works perfectly on my system (ubuntu-desktop) and which
> is supposed to be the new generation apt tool :)

That's what I thought too - and it was true the first few times. Like, it'd say its removing kubuntu desktop but it'd be all fine. So then I removed kaffiene and keb too, and each time it listed more and more packages as being removed. I guess once kubuntu-desktop has been removed, it believes that all the packages inside kubuntu-desktop are no longer necessary. So each time if I remove 2 or 3 things like kaffiene and keb it will uninstall the entirety of KDE.

This is on the latest feisty btw. And I tested it via the 'add or remove programs' graphical UI and it had the same result. In other words I can screw up this system (recoverably, if you're not a newbie user, but I dont like to make that assumption) just by removing things like keb and amarok via the 'add or remove programs' gui.

apt-get is supposed to mark all dependencies of packages which are in section "metapackages" as manual. This is required in order to prevent the removal of the whole system when you remove the metapackage or one of its dependencies (which also remove the metapackage, of course).

So I suppose some (or allmost all) packages existed on your system before you installed kubuntu-desktop (or before apt-get got the code to handle "metapackges" section in a special way) and as such, these packages where not marked as manually installed.

I looked into the changelog and the code to mark as manual installed for metapackage dependencies was integrated in 0.6.46.4ubuntu10 version on 2007-03-14 which happened during the beta stages of feisty. So if you started from a non-beta feisty or upgraded after 2007-03-14's change hit the archives you should not be affected.

And question to Michael. What happens when /var/lib/apt/extended_states is removed? Does apt-get thinks that all packages are auto or manully installed?
I tried to rename extended_states to extended_states.dis and did "apt-get remove ubuntu-standard". No complaint for autoremoval was made. So I suspect that apt-get thinks that all packages which are not in extended_state are manually installed. Is it really so?

I also experienced this problem today. Originally I had Ubuntu 6.06 LTS on this laptop, upgraded to Edgy, then kubuntu-desktop added, then upgraded to Feisty recently.

After removing a few unnecessary applications (I honestly can't remember which at the moment sorry, mostly Gnome related though I think) via Adept, the following came up every time I ran apt-get:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  knetwalk kpat kolf ksokoban blinken krec korn kscd krita-data kshisen kmoon
  kmahjongg klaptopdaemon ksig ksim kwifimanager kcharselect python2.4-dev
  kjumpingcube kdeartwork-style kdeartwork-misc kcoloredit artsbuilder kdessh
  kanagram ktip libpth20 kmrml katomic libcvsservice0 kleopatra
  kdegames-card-data kruler ktux klettres python-at-spi kgoldrunner
  kbackgammon kpoker dirmngr kdepim-kfile-plugins kpackage kenolaba
  wlassistant kblackbox kdebase atlantikdesigner libmagick++9c2a
  konsolekalendar klatin libkexif1 kfloppy kstars ttf-dustin ksame kbruch
  kpager libkdegames1 kde-core kcalc krita keduca libboost-thread1.33.1
  kdeedu-data kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data libnspr4-0d kdeartwork-theme-icon
  kweather kmplot kalzium ksirc librss1 klinkstatus libboost-date-time1.33.1
  klickety kpovmodeler ksayit kmouth kalarm noatun-plugins kworldclock
  kalzium-data mpeglib kdewebdev kdegames kicker-applets amor kdict ktouch
  ktnef khexedit kdeaccessibility kedit kbounce kvoctrain kdetoys
  kimagemapeditor atlantik tidy libtidy-0.99-0 libexif-dev libgphoto2-2-dev
  libusb-dev kwordquiz kview libdb4.3++c2 ktron ttf-sjfonts ksync cvs
  kdenetwork libtiff-tools kttsd kdeartwork-emoticons dcoprss ksysv kwin4
  kdewallpapers kuser klettres-data kdeaddons kreversi kdf libksba8 kspaceduel
  kig libjpeg62-dev gnupg-agent libxul0d juk noatun klines fifteenapplet
  kdemultimedia kfaxview kstars-data edict lskat zlib1g-dev
  kaddressbook-plugins libarts1-mpeglib kviewshell kgamma kfilereplace
  kommander kdeutils kdegraphics kaboodle khangman gtk2-engines-gtk-qt
  libindex0 libmozjs0d kdeartwork-theme-window ksmiletris libarts1-audiofile
  kxsldbg quanta kbattleship kiconedit kdeadmin kpilot kasteroids
  myspell-en-za kfouleggs libmal1 libkdeedu3 libkgantt0 knewsticker ksnake
  kdelibs kappfinder eyesapplet kdat indi libxul-common kdelirc kpercentage
  superkaramba kjots kfax secpolicy ksirtet kmines kdvi kget pinentry-qt
  mscompress libgtkglext1 kgpg konquest kate-plugins libboost-python1.33.1
  kolourpaint libnss3-0d gpgsm gnupg2 kdeaddons-kfile-plugins libarts1-xine
  python-orca-brlapi ktuberling libltdl3 kturtle kaudiocreator ktimer
  quanta-data kmid kteatime kverbos kdeartwork kodo
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.

Ouch...

I removed the /var/lib/apt/extended_states file as suggested above, and the problem seems to have gone away. I agree this is something that needs resolving though, if I had been a newbie just following on screen instructions I'd have nuked half my system!

this happened to me yesterday! i had a FRESH install of kubuntu 7.10. i hadnt installed much. i proceeded to install kde4. then i went and removed CUPS and it removed EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!! I am now in the process of reinstalling since its too much hassle fixing it. i seriously dont need cups and a bunch of other things either. i dont get why this happens. this is a worse bug than i have ever experienced on windows..well excluding windows ME. lol

Hello all. I have the same problem. I don't need kmouth (and many more) so i want to remove it.
I removed the /var/lib/apt/extended_states file but still it wants to nuke my system.

adam@adam-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get remove kmouth
Czytanie list pakietów... Gotowe
Budowanie drzewa zależności... Gotowe
Następujące pakiety zostaną USUNIĘTE:
  kde kdeaccessibility kmouth
0 aktualizowanych, 0 nowo instalowanych, 3 usuwanych i 1 nieaktualizowanych.
Konieczne pobranie 0B archiwów.
Po rozpakowaniu zostanie zwolnione 1798kB miejsca na dysku.
Czy chcesz kontynuować [T/n]? n
Przerwane.
adam@adam-laptop:~$

I use polish version: USUNIETE = remove. Rest should be easy to guess.

So, my question is, how can i remove kmouth, but keep kde ?
I can add, that kubuntu-desktop is installed.

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue for you? Can you try with latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

On 11/11/2008 07:38 PM, Pablo Castellano wrote:
> Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make
> Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been
> any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue
> for you? Can you try with latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.
>
> ** Changed in: apt (Ubuntu)
> Status: Confirmed => Incomplete
>
>
This was fixed in Hardy as i recall, it was either late Hardy or early
Intreepid this bug has been reported already in Launchpad maybe a few of
them.

--
Sincerely Yours,
    John Vivirito

https://launchpad.net/~gnomefreak
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JohnVivirito
Linux User# 414246

"How can i get lost, if i have no where to go"
    -- Metallica from UnforgivenIII

Marking fixed as per last comment.