Synaptic any better than Windows ?

[Michel Clasquin]

On Sun, 2004-12-26 at 05:57 +0200, Ari Torhamo wrote:
> > > Or try complete removal option in Synaptic.
> 
> Can this option cause problems with dependencies? (trying to keep my
> Ubuntu clean and unbroken :)

apt-get (and by extension, synaptic) does not allow broken dependencies,
though it is possible to put them there if you muck around with dpkg and
put things in manually. If apt/synaptic wants to remove dependencies, it
will tell you.

So, for example, if you were to, say,

apt-get remove linux-386

and you don't have an alternative like linux-686 installed, apt would
inform you that it was now going to remove every package on your system,
since everything depends on it, and is this okay? :-)

(That is just an off-the-top-of-my-head f'r instance! No, I'm not
testing it on my system!)

The only difference between "remove" and "completely remove" in synaptic
is whether the configuration files are to be removed along with the
binaries. How cleanly this is done depends on the package maintainer. If
the maintainer forgot to mention in the rules governing that package
that /usr/blah/blah/foo.txt should be removed on a purge or "completely
remove", then it won't be. It happens occasionally. Not that a single
leftover file can usually do much damage.

-- 
Michel Clasquin

And crawling on the planet's face,
Some insects, called the human race,
Lost in time, lost in space,
And meaning.