For all the debian-users who might fall into the same ditch into which I had fallen, to alert them ...
I thank Mr. Cater for his advice at https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2023/11/msg00443.html. I raed his advice and understood that while uninstalling I should follow a path chronologically reverse to the one I had followed while installing all those packages on the 10th Nov 2023. So what I did was that I noted down his advice on a plain text editor, then opted for "uninstall completely ..." the following packages: php-common apache2 apache2-bin apache2-data mariadb-client-10.5 Following my practice of safety, I kept a note of the packages I had installed, as recorded in my first post of this thread, at: https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2023/11/msg00384.html as follows: [quote] The nearest that are available in Debian Bullseye : default-mysql-server default-mysql-server-core php-mysql php7.4-mysql apache2 php-db along with their dependencies. I installed them all. ... [/quote] Then I went to my list of synaptic installation history and from the block categories described earlier in: https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2023/11/msg00411.html, individually selected the still unselected packages. All of them, listed on the History list of 10th November 2023. With a little anxiety, I proceeded for a complete uninstallation. The Uninstallation completed without an error message (synaptic reported in the "Changes Applied" window: "Successfully applied all changes...") as follows: [output] (Reading database ... 270111 files and directories currently installed.) Removing apache2 (2.4.56-1~deb11u2) ... Removing apache2-bin (2.4.56-1~deb11u2) ... dpkg: warning: while removing apache2-bin, directory '/var/lib/apache2' not empty so not removed Removing apache2-data (2.4.56-1~deb11u2) ... Removing apache2-utils (2.4.56-1~deb11u2) ... Removing default-mysql-server (1.0.7) ... Removing default-mysql-server-core (1.0.7) ... Removing mariadb-server-10.5 (1:10.5.21-0+deb11u1) ... Removing galera-4 (26.4.11-0+deb11u1) ... Removing libaprutil1-ldap:amd64 (1.6.1-5+deb11u1) ... Removing libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3:amd64 (1.6.1-5+deb11u1) ... Removing libaprutil1:amd64 (1.6.1-5+deb11u1) ... Removing libapr1:amd64 (1.7.0-6+deb11u2) ... Removing libcgi-fast-perl (1:2.15-1) ... Removing libhtml-template-perl (2.97-1.1) ... Removing libcgi-pm-perl (4.51-1) ... Removing mariadb-client-10.5 (1:10.5.21-0+deb11u1) ... Removing libconfig-inifiles-perl (3.000003-1) ... Removing libdbd-mariadb-perl (1.21-3) ... Removing libfcgi-bin (2.4.2-2) ... Removing libfcgi-perl:amd64 (0.79+ds-2) ... Removing libfcgi0ldbl:amd64 (2.4.2-2) ... Removing liblua5.3-0:amd64 (5.3.3-1.1+deb11u1) ... Removing mailutils (1:3.10-3+b1) ... Removing libmailutils7:amd64 (1:3.10-3+b1) ... Removing mariadb-client-core-10.5 (1:10.5.21-0+deb11u1) ... Removing libmariadb3:amd64 (1:10.5.18-0+deb11u1) ... Removing libterm-readkey-perl (2.38-1+b2) ... Removing mariadb-server-core-10.5 (1:10.5.21-0+deb11u1) ... Removing mariadb-common (1:10.5.21-0+deb11u1) ... update-alternatives: using /etc/mysql/my.cnf.fallback to provide /etc/mysql/my.cnf (my.cnf) in auto mode Removing php-db (1.10.0-1) ... Removing php-pear (1:1.10.12+submodules+notgz+20210212-1) ... Removing php-cli (2:7.4+76) ... update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/php7.4 to provide /usr/bin/php (php) in auto mode update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/phar7.4 to provide /usr/bin/phar (phar) in auto mode update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/phar.phar7.4 to provide /usr/bin/phar.phar (phar.phar) in auto mode Removing php-xml (2:7.4+76) ... Removing php7.4-xml (7.4.33-1+deb11u4) ... Removing php7.4-cli (7.4.33-1+deb11u4) ... Removing php7.4-readline (7.4.33-1+deb11u4) ... Removing php-mysql (2:7.4+76) ... Removing php7.4-opcache (7.4.33-1+deb11u4) ... Removing php7.4-json (7.4.33-1+deb11u4) ... Removing php7.4-mysql (7.4.33-1+deb11u4) ... Removing socat (1.7.4.1-3) ... Removing php7.4-common (7.4.33-1+deb11u4) ... Removing php-common (2:76) ... Warning: Stopping phpsessionclean.service, but it can still be activated by: phpsessionclean.timer Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.4-2) ... Processing triggers for menu (2.1.48) ... Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.31-13+deb11u5) ... (Reading database ... 268625 files and directories currently installed.) Purging configuration files for php-common (2:76) ... Purging configuration files for apache2 (2.4.56-1~deb11u2) ... Purging configuration files for mariadb-common (1:10.5.21-0+deb11u1) ... Purging configuration files for mariadb-client-10.5 (1:10.5.21-0+deb11u1) ... Processing triggers for menu (2.1.48) ... [/output] So a SUMMARY becomes due: To note down the bulk packages while installing, follow a path chronologically reverse to the one followed during installing, then from the "History of installed, upgraded and removed packages" also select the associated packages installed along with the bulk packages and remove them together at one shot. So thank you all, Mr. Cater, Mr. debian-user and Mr. M, for your gentle confidence-building pushes. In between, I also reported a troll lurking. Best wishes, Rajib Etc. ______________________________ Inspiration Euclid Must Fall: The “Pythagorean” “Theorem” and the rant of racist and civilizational superiority Prof C K Raju https://doi.org/10.4314/ajct.v1i2.5 https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ajct.v1i1.6 A few innovations IN191986B http://viXra.org/abs/2301.0140, abs/2301.0147, /abs/2302.0023, ⋯,
