Hello everyone.

I have a group of packages that have been held back on my test box for a while, and I found some time to try to figure it out. They are:
libc6 libdb4.3 libglib2.0-0 libglib2.0-data libxrender1 locales

When I try to install a more recent version of one of these packages, I get:

The following packages are unused and will be REMOVED:
cramfsprogs dash
The following packages will be automatically REMOVED:
initrd-tools kernel-image-2.6.8-3-686

The held packages all seem to want to remove cramfsprogs and dash, which results in kernel-image being removed as well. However the kernel-image package listed above is the one that I'm currently using, so I can't remove it.

1. How can I upgrade the held packages?
2. Why isn't aptitude smart enough to realize that I need a kernel?

BTW:
~# aptitude dist-upgrade
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Reading task descriptions... Done
The following packages are unused and will be REMOVED:
cramfsprogs dash
The following packages will be automatically REMOVED:
initrd-tools kernel-image-2.6.8-3-686
The following packages will be REMOVED:
initrd-tools kernel-image-2.6.8-3-686
The following packages will be upgraded:
libc6 libdb4.3 libglib2.0-0 libglib2.0-data libxrender1 locales
6 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 4 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/9895kB of archives. After unpacking 50.7MB will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] n
Abort.

That kernel is too old for the testing branch. You need at least 2.6.17, and the testing kernel is now 2.6.18. Also, you need to understand how aptitude works with respect to the concepts of "requested" vs "unrequested" packages. Check the man page for that.

But first things first: upgrade your kernel

Then see how things are.

That worked fine - thank you very much.

You can stop Aptitude from removeing unused packages on an upgrade in it's options for future reference.