Hi all, i used synaptic to uninstall epiphany and it also removed gnome-destop along with it, resulting in me having to reinstall(AGAIN!) Ofcourse my intention was to uninstall epiphany and _not_ gnome, so is there a way to take epiphany off of my system with out affecting gnome? Thanx in advance!

gnome-desktop-environment is a meta-package , it doesn't remove anything or at least it shouldn't. That's the reason it is always safer/smarter to install gnome from gnome-core and installing the individual apps you need rather than the big meta-packages.Same for kde.

Ok .....

So should i use apt-get remove epiphany ? Or what. Synaptic tends to want to scrap everything that associates with the program you dont want anymore, which doesnt make any sense. Any solutions on how to remove the specified program 'Epiphany Web browser'

Try apt-get remove package -s and see what it says.

In aptitude you can change a package from being marked as automatically installed as a dependency of another package (in this case, a meta-package) to having it marked as being manually installed (meaning that it can be manually uninstalled.) So, open aptitude, find the package epiphany, and then select, from the options above, "Package", and then go down the options until you see "Mark Manual". Select this, and then remove epiphany (hit the minus sign, and then press letter g).

mark_alfred,

Surely it isn't a good idea to mix the use of aptitude and apt-get (Synaptic is a graphical front-end for apt-get by the way, they are one and the same in that sense).

dellthinker,

Craigevil is dead right about gnome-desktop being a meta-package. Let me give an example to help:

I always remove Rhythmbox from a fresh Debian install for example and the meta-package (gnome-desktop) is also removed at the same time even though only one actual programme (rhythmbox) is actualy removed during the proces.


Geddit?


I used to worry about the same too and still wonder if an update to the contents/list within the gnome-desktop meta-package could affect my installation at some time in the future.


Regards.

Is that still an issue? From the Lenny release notes, it seems that they both now have the same list of automatically-installed packages. Anyway, aptitude, when apt/synaptic had been the primary package management tool, only gave erratic results when the package was marked as "auto", rather than "manual", I think. By changing epiphany's status to manual in aptitude, one can just eliminate epiphany (via aptitude) without dragging in everything from the meta-package that epiphany's associated with. I think. And if not, just cancel the proposed changes, rather than enacting them.

I've successfully done this myself. Mind you, I exclusively use aptitude, and do not use either apt or synaptic.

If that's the case, then perhaps that's the best solution. Like I said, I don't use apt or synaptic, so I couldn't really say. But, from what you describe, it seems that simply removing it should work. In the past, though, when I tried to remove a program that was automatically installed as a dependency of a meta-package (back when I did use synaptic) I found that a whole slew of packages that I didn't want removed also ended up getting erased. But perhaps things have changed now.

That's a pretty old link. They're talking about upgrading from Sarge to Etch.

I was more interested in their other options for removing the auto flag..
# aptitude unmarkauto --schedule-only '~i'

and being able to do it for a single package rather than the keep-all,
or clearing only the auto flags and leaving other flags alone..
I haven't seen an example of that anywhere else.