On Thu, 13 Aug 1998, Hamish Moffatt wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 12, 1998 at 04:12:45PM +0200, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > On Tue, 11 Aug 1998, Hamish Moffatt wrote:
> >
> > > I just removed some of the old buzz/rex packages, base, timezone, bdflush.
> > > I did it in dselect, and apt quite happily obliged.
> >
> > Aargh! you removed base? You might be in for some trouble. Try to
> > run dpkg -i base-files.deb before you reboot. That will put some of the
> > vital files back I hope.
>
> It doesn't. base-files does not contain ANY devices. I am a bit surprised
> at how many of the files in the base.tgz file are not owned by any package
> after installation -- I think this is bad. Not even the kernel belongs
> to any package after initial installation.
>
> > These issues have been discussed some months ago (esp. w.r.t. base,) but
> > some people think that it is Supreme Evil to munge with files in
> > /var/lib/dpkg/info (that's what you need to do to get rid of "base"
> > safely.) IMHO having your system flushed is far worse. In the case of
> > timezone{,s}, I don't know exactly where the problem lies. You should
> > file a bugreport.
>
> Surely SOMETHING could be done to prevent removing base from trashing
> the system. base-files should own the same set of files anyway I should
> think; I can't see why it wouldn't provide the devices.
You're going so far back (buzz) that memory is hazy but IIRC
buzz had base, and base had devices, and if you purged base,
all your devices disappeared.
I think Bruce or some other god put together a posting which showed
exactly what to do. (I think you just deleted some of the lines in
/var/lib/dpkg/info/base.list first.) This was because of the number
of postings from people who wanted to purge base because it was
listed as obsolete (very untidy).
Oh, and the reason base showed at all was because base-files was
introduced (presumably in rex) instead of base. And base-files
*didn't* have device files in base-files.list, probably for that very
reason, that purging it would remove them! No /dev files now
(bo) appear in *list.
I think that answers all the points raised, except perhaps to say
that it isn't in the spirit of unix/linux to prevent you (as root)
from trashing the system if you really want to.
Cheers,
--
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: +44 1908 653 739 Fax: +44 1908 655 151
Snail: David Wright, Earth Science Dept., Milton Keynes, England, MK7 6AA
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official stationery. Views expressed here are either my own or plagiarised.
