Hi,
sorry to ask such a basic question; i'm really new to Linux.
I have installed LinEx debian based linux.
I installed mozilla 1.6; having installed moz. 1.0.0 and galeon, i wanted to get rid of them. The only way i found was to dpkg --force-all --remove for mozilla, mozilla-mail, galeon and galeon-common. Now i still get the error that gnome depends on them! I do not want to reinstall those packages; how can i get dependencies right?
Thanks a lot for giving a newbie a hand, regards,
Daniele.

You remove packages that have been installed with apt with:

and the APT system will handle the dependencies for you. In fact, you will rarely use the dpkg command in the raw (save something like `dpkg -l | grep somestring`). Use APT, or install synaptic for a gui instead of managing packages with dpkg alone.

I would:

Good luck!

Hi,
apt-get would not uninstall mozilla or galeon alone, only uninstalling gnome with them...
I managed to uninstall them with --force, but the problem i do have is that apt-get now won't install other packages because of dependencies problems, because it says gnome depends on galeon, not installed anymore, that depends on mozilla.
I alredy did before the apt-get update and apg-get upgrade with success.
Thanks,
Daniele.

The gnome package is a software suite of other packages. Rather than installing gnome (apt-get install gnome), install only the subpackages that you want (apt-get install gnome-core...).

I suggest you use apt-get install to reinstall what your forced out. THEN use apt-get remove to do it properly.

Good Luck!

-I suggest you use apt-get install to reinstall what your forced out. THEN
-use apt-get remove to do it properly.
-
-Good Luck!

I thought about doing so, but in the first place i tried to use apt-get remove and it will not uninstall mozilla and/or galeon without uninstalling gnome; that's why i forced it...

What packages do you specifically want to install? What was the purpose of removing a meta-package like "gnome"'s dependencies to begin with? As mentioned above, if there is another package you want that needs some gnome libs, it will not have "gnome" as a dependency but "gnome-core", "gnome-foo-dev" etc.

That's what i get now after forcing those browsers out; why would gnome depend on galeon?
Thank you; i'm slowly getting into knowing linux basics, but it's not so easy, especially after years of windows...
p.s. I have now mozilla 1.6 as browser, so i have no reasons to install again both galeon and mozilla 1.0.0...

linex:/home/xxxxx# apt-get check
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
You might want to run `apt-get -f install' to correct these.
Sorry, but the following packages have unmet dependencies:
gnome: Depends: galeon or
galeon-snapshot but it is not installable
E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f.

because "GNOME" is a meta package, containing everything that "gnome" (The Gnome Desktop) usually comes with. In order to intall just "gnome", install gnome-core, gnome-* etc.

Ok, so what should i do in order not to get any more dependencies errors? Uninstall the gnome meta package and then install only the gnome components i want? It's a little scary; would not this affect my desktop?
I have the programs i want installed, everything works properly, i just want to get rid of the dependencies error that eventually prevents me from apt-get upgrade.
Thak you all for the help,
Daniele.

It might... but not too much if it does. Most of your settings are stored in ~/.gnome*. The only settings you sould lose are "Global" settings. (from /etc and other system wide config dirs.)

Well,
i did not even know what a metapackage was or that it existed...
In dselect it tells me that if i remove it the programs themselves will not be removed, so i guess the best course of action would be to just remove the gnome metapackage to get rid of the dependencies error i still get.
I'm still scared of uninstalling stuff, but i'll give it a try and if something bad happens, i guess it'll be an excuse to learn more.
Thanks a lot.

If you type "apt-cache showpkg gnome," it will show you a list of its dependencies. Those dependencies include gnome-desktop-environment, gnome-office, and others. Galeon is a part of the gnome-desktop-environment, so if you install gnome, you will automatically be installing Galeon as well. What I and others have suggested is that you install only the parts of gnome that you want.

To give another example, think of Microsoft Office. It comes with Word, Excel, Access, Powerpoint, etc. If you only want to install Word, you wouldn't install the entire Office suite, you would only select the components related to Word.

Take a look through the different packages that are part of gnome.

http://packages.debian.org/unstable/gnome/gnome

and also look at the different parts in the subpackages (gnome-office, gnome-desktop-environment) to find out what parts you need, so you don't end up installing stuff you don't want.

Thanks to everybody.
I just removed gnome, nothing bad happened and havo no more dependencies problems. Slowly learning and getting off MS hook; overall seems easier than the nightmare people tells you it is.
Hasta pronto,
Daniele.

Its the truth.