Linuxians,

I'm using Debian/Sarge. My problem first began after I attempted to install psi. My apt-get sources are configured for testing. I used apt-get install psi, simple right? Well, once the installation started, it also said removing kde (and I mean all of kde..apps, everything). Why in the world did it remove kde? I tried using base-conf to restore kde, but it wasn't able to. Then I tried using kde's konstruct program to install the latest kde (3.5). That didn't work. apt-get install kde didn't either, because of too many unmet dependencies. I decided to issue apt-get upgrade just for the heck of it. I rebooted, and holy $h!t, most modules can't load properly. However, I can still access my system, but most of my hardware isn't being detected. Anyway, I'm thinking about just doing a format/re-install. My system is currently partitioned off as follows:

/
/usr
/var
/tmp
/home
/swap

I'm going to format all except for /home. Will this prevent me from losing my pop mail that was previously download to evolution? Evolution does have a hidden file in /home, but I just wanted to double check before I proceed. If you guys have any suggestions about how to fix my problem without doing a re-install plz let me now. Thanks!!!!

The reason psi wanted to remove kde was that there was a conflict, and you were telling him to install psi. I'm sure APT asked if it was okay, and you said yes go ahead (without thinking, or else ran it with the -y flag). Because APT is powerful, it's somewhat dangerous. I've gotten into the habit of running a simulation first for packages I'm not sure of. Just enter "apt-get -s install packagename" and look to see what the results would be.

Edit: note that the kde metapackage is not the same thing as KDE itself.

The kde metapackage in testing has broken dependencies at the moment. When I did a fresh install of testing recently, it wouldn't install kde. So there wasn't any chance for you to use "apt-get install kde" successfully. Instead, you could have installed kde-core and a few important kde programs, and those dragged the majority of useful kde packages with them. I think only Sid (unstable) is using KDE 3.5 at the moment.

I wouldn't necessarily reinstall at this point. Play with the system and see if you can get it working again as good practice and learning to understand your system and APT. Print out and read the APT how-to in my sig.

I'm guessing that Evolution, like Thunderbird and other programs, stores all of your stuff under your home directory. But for goodness sakes, find out for sure and back it up.

It isn't really recommended to run testing unless you "know what you're doing." Personally, I've installed a purely stable version and in parallel am running testing, to learn the ropes. Until I'm confident running testing, I am keeping my main stuff on stable.