[Tfug] apt-get undo

[johngalt1]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Claude Rubinson" <rubinson>
To: <tfug at tfug.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2008 7:00 PM
Subject: Re: [Tfug] apt-get undo


> On Tue, Sep 02, 2008 at 06:46:00PM -0700, johngalt1 wrote:
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Glen Pfeiffer" <glen>
>> To: "Tucson Free Unix Group" <tfug at tfug.org>
>> Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2008 1:52 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Tfug] apt-get undo
>>
>>
>> > On [30/08/08 11:26 -0700] johngalt1 wrote:
>> >>After doing an apt-get install, I realized a lot more
>> >>than the
>> >>package specified was installed. How would you back off
>> >>the
>> >>changes?
>> >
>> > Are you familiar with aptitude's ability to remove all
>> > automatically installed dependencies? This
>> > functionality has been
>> > added to apt-get in testing, but it's not there in etch
>> > so you'll
>> > need to use aptitude instead. Try 'aptitude purge
>> > <package-name>'.
>>
>> That will be excellent when the function mentioned makes
>> it
>> to stable. Right now, aptitude purge just removes the
>> package plus data files.
>
> For aptitude's purge function to work properly, you need
> to have
> installed the package via aptitude.  If you install via
> apt-get,
> aptitude has no way of knowing what else was pulled in
> along the way.
>
> Aptitude has been Debian's recommended package manager for
> a few years
> now and it's worth switching to.  It's pretty much a drop
> in
> replacement for apt-get and apt-cache (aptitude update,
> aptitude
> upgrade, aptitude dist-upgrade, etc).  (Although in
> testing,
> dist-upgrade has been renamed "full-upgrade" and upgrade
> is now
> "safe-upgrade".)

That's why it worked for Glen. Useful info. I needed a clue.
Thanks everyone.