[Bug 574287] Re: tasksel: forcefully removes packages when tasks overlap

[Martin Erik Werner]

ola:
Please do not assign yourself to the bug unless you are working on it, thanks.

eMcE:
Yes, that might work in some cases.
It would be advisable though, to first do the grepping and then review the result before trying to reinstall everything from it, I have a feeling things could go even worse if one is not being careful there...

Also worth noting is that any automatically-installed states will have
been lost, so that's something to keep in mind as well...

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/574287

Title:
  tasksel: forcefully removes packages when tasks overlap

Status in “apt” package in Ubuntu:
  Invalid
Status in “tasksel” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed
Status in “tasksel” package in Debian:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  TEST CASE

  1. Boot Lucid LiveCD

  2. run "sudo tasksel" and select "virtual machine host"

  3. run "sudo tasksel" and deselect "virtual machine host"

  4. watch how tasksel uninstalls your system

  OBSERVATIONS

  What seems to happen is that apt vengefully removes ALL of the items
  associated with one task, including several base dependencies of other
  tasks (e.g. ubuntu-desktop)

  One illustrative example is the openssh-server task:
  This one includes the packages openssh-server, tcpd and libwrap0.
  From a normal ubuntu-desktop (e.g. ~liveCD) both tcpd and libwrap0 are already installed, and the task-install pulls in only openssh-server.
  However when the task is removed, all these three packages (openssh-server, tcpd and libwrap0) are forcefully removed.
  Since libwrap0 is a core dependency of gnome, a large part of gnome will be removed alongside the removal of the task.

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