Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[John Hasler]

Gene writes:
> No, thats just grep being grep, it says that of ANY binary file it
> tries to read as text.

No, it says that of any binary file in which it finds a match.  You
don't want it to print out the "line" in the binary file where it found
the match because the "line" could be thousands of characters long.

>From the grep man page:

 -I Process a binary file as if it did not contain matching data;
this is equivalent to the --binary-files=without-match option.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhas...@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Lisi Reisz]

On Sunday 03 July 2016 17:11:43 Wes wrote:
> On 2016-06-30, Lisi Reisz wrote:
> > I ran
> > # aptitude install libreoffice-grammarcheck-en-gb
> > and aptitude just carried on without asking as is correct when there
> > is only one package; but it proceeded to uninstall my entire desktop
> > environment, hundreds of packages.
>
> Both apt-get and aptitude have an option -s (for "simulate").
>
> Instead of actually doing anything, with the -s option
> apt-get/aptitude will just pretend to do it (in their characteristically
> verbose fashion).
>
> So when I'm not certain what an install or upgrade will do, I first do
>
> # apt-get -s [whatever-thing-I'm-considering-doing-for-real]
>
> -wes
>
> (BTW, sorry for breaking out of the thread; I'm not subscribed to the
> list.)

The problem was that I thought that I knew what installing one package would 
do. :-(  I have installed single packages to LibreOffice, and before that ot 
OpenOffice quite often before.  One sometimes has to learn the hard way.  But 
aptitude does usually ask!  I shall be investigating this at a later date.

But thanks for reminding me to use -s!!!

Lisi

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Wes]

On 2016-06-30, Lisi Reisz wrote:


I ran
# aptitude install libreoffice-grammarcheck-en-gb
and aptitude just carried on without asking as is correct when there
is only one package; but it proceeded to uninstall my entire desktop
environment, hundreds of packages.


Both apt-get and aptitude have an option -s (for "simulate").

Instead of actually doing anything, with the -s option
apt-get/aptitude will just pretend to do it (in their characteristically
verbose fashion).

So when I'm not certain what an install or upgrade will do, I first do

# apt-get -s [whatever-thing-I'm-considering-doing-for-real]

-wes

(BTW, sorry for breaking out of the thread; I'm not subscribed to the list.)

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Virgo Pärna]

On Fri, 1 Jul 2016 00:37:32 +0100, Lisi Reisz  wrote:
>
> I used bash's history to confirm that I had had no such mental aberration.  
> It 
> confirmed that, after the root screen prompt, I had typed:
> aptitude install libreoffice-grammarcheck-en-gb
> and nothing else - well, , of course.
>

`   What about aliases? To make sure, that aptitude is not an
aliased to /usr/bin/aptitude -y.

-- 
Virgo Pärna 
virgo.pa...@mail.ee

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Sat, 02 Jul 2016, Lisi Reisz wrote:
> On Friday 01 July 2016 19:07:11 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> > On Fri, 01 Jul 2016, Lisi Reisz wrote:
> > > On Friday 01 July 2016 00:14:34 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> > > > Try this when you open a root session (in a typical console, and
> > > > certainly in a typical graphical terminal):
> > > >
> > > > stty sane
> > >
> > > No output in either.
> >
> > "stty sane" shouldn't generate any visible output.
> >
> > But now your root terminal should behave a lot better, and answer to ^C
> > as expected.
> 
> Thank you very much.  That was not my machine, but I shall certainly do it to 
> mine too.  And all machines I administer.  As well as use Brian's hint to 
> find out what I have got.

Please note that it "doesn't stick", you would need to add it to
.profile/.bash_profile/.bashrc, YMMV.

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Lisi Reisz]

On Friday 01 July 2016 19:07:11 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> On Fri, 01 Jul 2016, Lisi Reisz wrote:
> > On Friday 01 July 2016 00:14:34 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> > > Try this when you open a root session (in a typical console, and
> > > certainly in a typical graphical terminal):
> > >
> > > stty sane
> >
> > No output in either.
>
> "stty sane" shouldn't generate any visible output.
>
> But now your root terminal should behave a lot better, and answer to ^C
> as expected.

Thank you very much.  That was not my machine, but I shall certainly do it to 
mine too.  And all machines I administer.  As well as use Brian's hint to 
find out what I have got.

Lisi

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Brian]

On Fri 01 Jul 2016 at 18:12:51 +, Curt wrote:

> On 2016-07-01, Brian  wrote:
> >> 
> >> That's not what I meant. I meant ask *him* *here* in this public thread 
> >> why ...
> >> etc.
> >
> > He is a subscriber to -user. By definition he *has been* asked here in
> > this public thread.
>   
> Well, there you go then, man. Maybe he's formulating a thorough reply at
> this very moment.  Of course, rather than asking him directly in the
> relevant article in which he wrote the suggestion that inspires your
> undying curiosity, you chose a more tortuous route that might permit him
> to ignore you under the pretext he hasn't read every single post in the
> thread without exception and missed the one in question.

You seem to think that -user is for one-to-one interaction. You
also seem to have an insight into the motives of posters who don't
reply to the list. This is a remarkable skill. Do you write fairy
stories too?

> Or perhaps he simply thinks your interrogation doesn't merit a response
> for whatever reason!

Could be. Who knows? What we do know is that, up to now, he has
nothing to say; that's perfectly reasonable and nobody should have
any problem with that. You have responded but have withheld clue
on the essential substance of the query; that is not reasonable.

> > I hope the above is clear. Whether he chooses to reply is up to him. You
> > obviously have no reply of any consequence to give.
> 
> Oh, geez, you're gonna hurt my feelings now, B.

All of apt's configuration options are in /etc/apt. Why search for
anything outside that location? That was my query. In line with
your 'one-to-one' concept of -user I am directing it directly at
you.

Just in case you (Curt) are in any doubt: why is searching /etc
for an apt specific directive better than searching /etc/apt?

Please feel free not to reply with anything relevant to the actual
question. Indeed, you are not obliged to reply at all.

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Curt]

On 2016-07-01, Brian  wrote:
>> 
>> That's not what I meant. I meant ask *him* *here* in this public thread why 
>> ...
>> etc.
>
> He is a subscriber to -user. By definition he *has been* asked here in
> this public thread.
  
Well, there you go then, man. Maybe he's formulating a thorough reply at
this very moment.  Of course, rather than asking him directly in the
relevant article in which he wrote the suggestion that inspires your
undying curiosity, you chose a more tortuous route that might permit him
to ignore you under the pretext he hasn't read every single post in the
thread without exception and missed the one in question.

Or perhaps he simply thinks your interrogation doesn't merit a response
for whatever reason!

>> I thought that was clear.
>
> I hope the above is clear. Whether he chooses to reply is up to him. You
> obviously have no reply of any consequence to give.
>

Oh, geez, you're gonna hurt my feelings now, B.

-- 
Même l’avenir n’est plus ce qu’il était. 
Paul Valéry  

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Fri, 01 Jul 2016, Lisi Reisz wrote:
> On Friday 01 July 2016 00:14:34 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> > Try this when you open a root session (in a typical console, and
> > certainly in a typical graphical terminal):
> >
> > stty sane
> 
> No output in either.

"stty sane" shouldn't generate any visible output.

But now your root terminal should behave a lot better, and answer to ^C
as expected.

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Lisi Reisz]

On Friday 01 July 2016 18:18:42 Brian wrote:
> On Fri 01 Jul 2016 at 17:59:34 +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote:
> > On Friday 01 July 2016 17:52:08 Curt wrote:
> > > On 2016-07-01, Lisi Reisz  wrote:
> > > > On Friday 01 July 2016 00:14:34 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> > > >> Try this when you open a root session (in a typical console, and
> > > >> certainly in a typical graphical terminal):
> > > >>
> > > >> stty sane
> > > >
> > > > No output in either.
> > >
> > > What were you expecting?
> >
> > Henrique, who is being very helpful, asked me to try it, so I tried it. 
> > I had no expectations.
>
> stty is used to change and print terminal line settings. I've kept
> away from it for many years. You can see what your settings are with
> 'stty -a'. I have the interupt signal as 'intr = ^C'. ^C is ctrl-C.
>
> 'sty sane' gives no output but sets the terminal line settings to
> various reasonable values. The manual lists them.

Thank you!  That makes sense.  Now I shall try stty -a - both on the target 
machine and on my own. ;-)

Lisi

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Brian]

On Fri 01 Jul 2016 at 17:59:34 +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote:

> On Friday 01 July 2016 17:52:08 Curt wrote:
> > On 2016-07-01, Lisi Reisz  wrote:
> > > On Friday 01 July 2016 00:14:34 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> > >> Try this when you open a root session (in a typical console, and
> > >> certainly in a typical graphical terminal):
> > >>
> > >> stty sane
> > >
> > > No output in either.
> >
> > What were you expecting?
> 
> Henrique, who is being very helpful, asked me to try it, so I tried it.  I 
> had 
> no expectations.

stty is used to change and print terminal line settings. I've kept
away from it for many years. You can see what your settings are with
'stty -a'. I have the interupt signal as 'intr = ^C'. ^C is ctrl-C.

'sty sane' gives no output but sets the terminal line settings to
various reasonable values. The manual lists them.

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Curt]

On 2016-07-01, Lisi Reisz  wrote:
> On Friday 01 July 2016 17:52:08 Curt wrote:
>> On 2016-07-01, Lisi Reisz  wrote:
>> > On Friday 01 July 2016 00:14:34 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
>> >> Try this when you open a root session (in a typical console, and
>> >> certainly in a typical graphical terminal):
>> >>
>> >> stty sane
>> >
>> > No output in either.
>>
>> What were you expecting?
>
> Henrique, who is being very helpful, asked me to try it, so I tried it.  I 
> had 
> no expectations.

You mentioned output so I asked. No output. No expectations. All is
good.

> Lisi
>
>


-- 
Même l’avenir n’est plus ce qu’il était. 
Paul Valéry  

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Brian]

On Fri 01 Jul 2016 at 16:57:02 +, Curt wrote:

> On 2016-07-01, Lisi Reisz  wrote:
> > On Friday 01 July 2016 17:39:57 Curt wrote:
> >>
> > Because then the answer might be private too, and this is a public thread.  
> > I 
> > would obviously be interested in the answer,  and many others might be too. 
> >  
> > Not to mention that it would be useful for the archives and that Henrique 
> > might not want to be bothered privately.
> 
> That's not what I meant. I meant ask *him* *here* in this public thread why 
> ...
> etc.

He is a subscriber to -user. By definition he *has been* asked here in
this public thread.
 
> I thought that was clear.

I hope the above is clear. Whether he chooses to reply is up to him. You
obviously have no reply of any consequence to give.

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Curt]

On 2016-07-01, Lisi Reisz  wrote:
> On Friday 01 July 2016 17:39:57 Curt wrote:
>>
> Because then the answer might be private too, and this is a public thread.  I 
> would obviously be interested in the answer,  and many others might be too.  
> Not to mention that it would be useful for the archives and that Henrique 
> might not want to be bothered privately.

That's not what I meant. I meant ask *him* *here* in this public thread why ...
etc.

I thought that was clear.

> Lisi
>
>


-- 
Même l’avenir n’est plus ce qu’il était. 
Paul Valéry  

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Lisi Reisz]

On Friday 01 July 2016 17:52:08 Curt wrote:
> On 2016-07-01, Lisi Reisz  wrote:
> > On Friday 01 July 2016 00:14:34 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> >> Try this when you open a root session (in a typical console, and
> >> certainly in a typical graphical terminal):
> >>
> >> stty sane
> >
> > No output in either.
>
> What were you expecting?

Henrique, who is being very helpful, asked me to try it, so I tried it.  I had 
no expectations.

Lisi

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Curt]

On 2016-07-01, Lisi Reisz  wrote:
> On Friday 01 July 2016 00:14:34 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
>> Try this when you open a root session (in a typical console, and
>> certainly in a typical graphical terminal):
>>
>> stty sane
>
> No output in either.
>

What were you expecting?

>
>


-- 
Même l’avenir n’est plus ce qu’il était. 
Paul Valéry  

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Lisi Reisz]

On Friday 01 July 2016 17:39:57 Curt wrote:
> On 2016-07-01, Brian  wrote:
> >> >> > Must be progress. GNU grep 2.12 here.
> >> >
> >> > Bug #678652.
> >>
> >> He didn't write that.
> >
> > No, you wrote it and I accidentally snipped a line when replying. But
> > now we know why the manual for grep 2.20-4.1 says something different
> > for -r/-R from the one for grep 2.12. An assessment will have to be
> > made whether the knowlege gained outweighs the information not present.
>
> Just get your attributions straight is all, buddy.
>
> >> > And just to get back vaguely to the topic. Why search the whole of
> >> > /etc when apt and aptitude have their config files in /etc/apt?
> >>
> >> You'll have to ask Heinrich.
> >
> > Heinrich? I mailed the list, not Henrique de Moraes Holschuh. You too
> > are welcome to offer an opinion.
>
> If you're curious about his suggestion, why not ask him?  Seems simple
> and straightforward, but with you people you just never know.

Because then the answer might be private too, and this is a public thread.  I 
would obviously be interested in the answer,  and many others might be too.  
Not to mention that it would be useful for the archives and that Henrique 
might not want to be bothered privately.

Lisi

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Curt]

On 2016-07-01, Brian  wrote:
>> >> 
>> >> > Must be progress. GNU grep 2.12 here.
>> >
>> > Bug #678652.
>> 
>> He didn't write that.
>
> No, you wrote it and I accidentally snipped a line when replying. But
> now we know why the manual for grep 2.20-4.1 says something different
> for -r/-R from the one for grep 2.12. An assessment will have to be
> made whether the knowlege gained outweighs the information not present.

Just get your attributions straight is all, buddy.

>> > And just to get back vaguely to the topic. Why search the whole of /etc
>> > when apt and aptitude have their config files in /etc/apt?
>> 
>> You'll have to ask Heinrich.
>
> Heinrich? I mailed the list, not Henrique de Moraes Holschuh. You too
> are welcome to offer an opinion.

If you're curious about his suggestion, why not ask him?  Seems simple
and straightforward, but with you people you just never know.

-- 
Même l’avenir n’est plus ce qu’il était. 
Paul Valéry  

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Lisi Reisz]

On Friday 01 July 2016 00:14:34 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> Try this when you open a root session (in a typical console, and
> certainly in a typical graphical terminal):
>
> stty sane

No output in either.

Lisi

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Brian]

On Fri 01 Jul 2016 at 15:19:20 +, Curt wrote:

> On 2016-07-01, Brian  wrote:
> > On Fri 01 Jul 2016 at 13:56:22 +0200, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> >
> >> On Fri, Jul 01, 2016 at 11:42:58AM +, Curt wrote:
> >> > On 2016-07-01,   wrote:
> >> 
> >> [...]
> >> 
> >> > > GNU grep 2.20, Debian package grep 2.20-4.1 -- progress or regression?
> >> 
> >> [...]
> >> 
> >> > Must be progress. GNU grep 2.12 here.
> >
> > Bug #678652.
> 
> He didn't write that.

No, you wrote it and I accidentally snipped a line when replying. But
now we know why the manual for grep 2.20-4.1 says something different
for -r/-R from the one for grep 2.12. An assessment will have to be
made whether the knowlege gained outweighs the information not present.

> > And just to get back vaguely to the topic. Why search the whole of /etc
> > when apt and aptitude have their config files in /etc/apt?
> 
> You'll have to ask Heinrich.

Heinrich? I mailed the list, not Henrique de Moraes Holschuh. You too
are welcome to offer an opinion.

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Lisi Reisz]

On Friday 01 July 2016 16:06:30 Ralph Katz wrote:
> On 07/01/2016 10:25 AM, Lisi Reisz wrote:
> ...
>
> > Aptitude has served me well, reliably and faithfully for 14 years.  I was
> > not rushing to blame it in this case.
> >
> > But until I do find out what went wrong, I shall be a little nervous of
> > aptitude. :-(
>
> ...
>
> Sorry to read of your upgrade troubles.  When I mentioned my easy
> upgrade of Dell Inspiron 9100, I assumed you, too, would also follow the
> specific instructions in the release notes.

I did.  This isn't the Dell Inspiron 2300 - I was doing two machines.  And the 
problem didn't actually arise during the upgrade, which appeared to have gone 
super-smoothly.

> From where you are now, others on this list are way better suited than I
> to help.  Good luck!

Thanks!!  I seem to need it.

Lisi
>
> Ralph
>
> For the archives:
> https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.h
>tml#upgradingpackages
>
> > 4.4. Upgrading packages
> >
> > The recommended way to upgrade from previous Debian releases is to use
> > the package management tool apt-get. In previous releases, aptitude was
> > recommended for this purpose, but recent versions of apt-get provide
> > equivalent functionality and also have shown to more consistently give
> > the desired upgrade results.
> >
> > The upgrade process for some previous releases recommended the use of
> > aptitude for the upgrade. This tool is not recommended for upgrades from
> > wheezy to jessie.
>
> and:
> > 4.4.4. Minimal system upgrade
> >
> > In some cases, doing the full upgrade (as described below) directly might
> > remove large numbers of packages that you will want to keep. We therefore
> > recommend a two-part upgrade process: first a minimal upgrade to overcome
> > these conflicts, then a full upgrade as described in Section 4.4.5,
> > “Upgrading the system”.

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Curt]

On 2016-07-01, Brian  wrote:
> On Fri 01 Jul 2016 at 13:56:22 +0200, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Jul 01, 2016 at 11:42:58AM +, Curt wrote:
>> > On 2016-07-01,   wrote:
>> 
>> [...]
>> 
>> > > GNU grep 2.20, Debian package grep 2.20-4.1 -- progress or regression?
>> 
>> [...]
>> 
>> > Must be progress. GNU grep 2.12 here.
>
> Bug #678652.

He didn't write that.

> And just to get back vaguely to the topic. Why search the whole of /etc
> when apt and aptitude have their config files in /etc/apt?

You'll have to ask Heinrich.

>

-- 
Même l’avenir n’est plus ce qu’il était. 
Paul Valéry  

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Ralph Katz]

On 07/01/2016 10:25 AM, Lisi Reisz wrote:
...
> Aptitude has served me well, reliably and faithfully for 14 years.  I was not 
> rushing to blame it in this case.
> 
> But until I do find out what went wrong, I shall be a little nervous of 
> aptitude. :-(
...

Sorry to read of your upgrade troubles.  When I mentioned my easy
upgrade of Dell Inspiron 9100, I assumed you, too, would also follow the
specific instructions in the release notes.

From where you are now, others on this list are way better suited than I
to help.  Good luck!

Ralph

For the archives:
https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.html#upgradingpackages

> 4.4. Upgrading packages
> 
> The recommended way to upgrade from previous Debian releases is to use the 
> package management tool apt-get. In previous releases, aptitude was 
> recommended for this purpose, but recent versions of apt-get provide 
> equivalent functionality and also have shown to more consistently give the 
> desired upgrade results. 

> The upgrade process for some previous releases recommended the use of 
> aptitude for the upgrade. This tool is not recommended for upgrades from 
> wheezy to jessie. 


and:

> 4.4.4. Minimal system upgrade
> 
> In some cases, doing the full upgrade (as described below) directly might 
> remove large numbers of packages that you will want to keep. We therefore 
> recommend a two-part upgrade process: first a minimal upgrade to overcome 
> these conflicts, then a full upgrade as described in Section 4.4.5, 
> “Upgrading the system”. 





signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[David Wright]

On Fri 01 Jul 2016 at 08:36:02 (-0400), Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Friday 01 July 2016 05:43:44 Jörg-Volker Peetz wrote:
> > Gene Heskett wrote on 07/01/16 01:35:
> > > On Thursday 30 June 2016 19:25:37 Lisi Reisz wrote:
> >
> > 
> >
> > > No, thats just grep being grep, it says that of ANY binary file it
> > > tries to read as text.  I have spent days pouring over the manpages
> > > for grep, looking for a option to feed it to make grep quit that,
> > > simply because its so verbose that what you are looking for can get
> > > lost in its blathering about that.
> > >
> > > Cheers, Gene Heskett
> >
> > Is 'grep -rI /etc' doing what you want? The switch "-I" should
> > "process a binary file as if it did not contain matching data".
> >
> > Regards,
> > jvp.
> 
> But in the example that started this side-track discussion, following the 
> simlinks discloses that the /usr/bin/aptitude-curses file does indeed 
> match, but having looked at hex dumps of compiled C for 30 years now, I 
> will repeat myself by saying yes, its there and case matches the string 
> being searched for BECAUSE the binary has to have that string as a 
> comparison that determines how it runs.   IOW, once is 100% expected.

I'm glad you've got there at last. That's much clearer than the
"blathering" paragraph you originally wrote. But there's no actually
need to go examining hex dumps; strings will do the job for you:

$ strings /usr/bin/aptitude-curses | less

> However I have no similar reasoning to apply to the match in the 
> python-2.7 tree. OTOH, me not a python guru.

If you can't see why
/etc/httpd/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/aptdaemon/console.py matches,
then I can't help wondering why you have installed python-aptdaemon.

When the aptdaemon is carrying out aptitude-like operations on your
behalf, it needs to know your assume-yes requirement just like aptitude
itself does. So it reads the same files and tests for the same strings.

Cheers,
David.

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Lisi Reisz]

On Friday 01 July 2016 13:19:46 Brian wrote:
> On Fri 01 Jul 2016 at 00:37:32 +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote:
> > On Friday 01 July 2016 00:14:34 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> > > On Fri, 01 Jul 2016, Lisi Reisz wrote:
> > > > assumed, it wasn't asked to remove anything.  It was asked to add one
> > > > thing which in now way depended on anything removed.  That is what
> > > > puzzles me.  And
> > >
> > > I don't know why it would do that.  Well, it shouldn't ask about
> > > deleting one thousand packages if you asked it to install one
> > > package... but it certainly is supposed to ask about installing that
> > > one package *after* informing you that it would remove one thousand
> > > packages in order to do that.
> >
> > Yes.  I expressed myself badly.  I was having difficulty seeing the
> > screen and therefore typing.  If I ask for one thing and it asks no
> > questions at all I expect it to install only one thing.  If it wants to
> > install a load of dependencies, or, even worse, remove half the system, I
> > expect it ot ask me!!!
> >
> > > Note that I am assuming neither of you did "aptitude -y", that would be
> > > bad and would also explain what happened.
> >
> > I used bash's history to confirm that I had had no such mental
> > aberration.  It confirmed that, after the root screen prompt, I had
> > typed:
> > aptitude install libreoffice-grammarcheck-en-gb
> > and nothing else - well, , of course.
>
> The outcome of the command may very well be due to previous history
> during during the upgrade. You really need to look at that before
> concluding it is aptitude itself which is at fault. /var/log/apt is
> the place to scour for clues.



Thanks, again, Brian.

When I next have access to the physical computer (of which more anon) I will 
try to copy that so that the wisdom of the list can tell me what is wrong 
with it.

Meanwhile, I am not going near that box with aptitude when I do get access!!

Aptitude has served me well, reliably and faithfully for 14 years.  I was not 
rushing to blame it in this case.

But until I do find out what went wrong, I shall be a little nervous of 
aptitude. :-(

My having got a little further with my next project would help here.  Having, 
thanks to this list, got ssh going reliably over my private net (isn't 
avahi-daemon wonderful?!) I must get it going over the net.  If I could get 
in that way, I could just copy the log over.

But I can't get physical access, possibly for a week.

Lisi

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 01 July 2016 05:43:44 Jörg-Volker Peetz wrote:

> Gene Heskett wrote on 07/01/16 01:35:
> > On Thursday 30 June 2016 19:25:37 Lisi Reisz wrote:
>
> 
>
> > No, thats just grep being grep, it says that of ANY binary file it
> > tries to read as text.  I have spent days pouring over the manpages
> > for grep, looking for a option to feed it to make grep quit that,
> > simply because its so verbose that what you are looking for can get
> > lost in its blathering about that.
> >
> > Cheers, Gene Heskett
>
> Is 'grep -rI /etc' doing what you want? The switch "-I" should
> "process a binary file as if it did not contain matching data".
>
> Regards,
> jvp.

But in the example that started this side-track discussion, following the 
simlinks discloses that the /usr/bin/aptitude-curses file does indeed 
match, but having looked at hex dumps of compiled C for 30 years now, I 
will repeat myself by saying yes, its there and case matches the string 
being searched for BECAUSE the binary has to have that string as a 
comparison that determines how it runs.   IOW, once is 100% expected.

However I have no similar reasoning to apply to the match in the 
python-2.7 tree. OTOH, me not a python guru.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 01 July 2016 03:44:01 to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 01, 2016 at 09:42:09AM +0200, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > And I have paid tribute to the (in the man/info pages) unnamed
> > authors (but one can find out [1]) who gave me such a little jewel.
>
> Eh, sorry. Forgot
>
> [1] 
>
> -- t
The grep I know and first used was a translation to os9 from the AT&T 3b2 
version, but its been static for circa 30 years now so I expect some of 
the speedups our current version has have not been incorporated.  
Running on a moto 6809 its understandably slow since the cpu clock is 
1.79 mhz, and I expect a redo might be in order. But I doubt it will 
happen.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Brian]

On Fri 01 Jul 2016 at 00:37:32 +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote:

> On Friday 01 July 2016 00:14:34 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> > On Fri, 01 Jul 2016, Lisi Reisz wrote:
> > > assumed, it wasn't asked to remove anything.  It was asked to add one
> > > thing which in now way depended on anything removed.  That is what
> > > puzzles me.  And
> >
> > I don't know why it would do that.  Well, it shouldn't ask about
> > deleting one thousand packages if you asked it to install one package...
> > but it certainly is supposed to ask about installing that one package
> > *after* informing you that it would remove one thousand packages in
> > order to do that.
> 
> Yes.  I expressed myself badly.  I was having difficulty seeing the screen 
> and 
> therefore typing.  If I ask for one thing and it asks no questions at all I 
> expect it to install only one thing.  If it wants to install a load of 
> dependencies, or, even worse, remove half the system, I expect it ot ask 
> me!!!
> 
> > Note that I am assuming neither of you did "aptitude -y", that would be
> > bad and would also explain what happened.
> 
> I used bash's history to confirm that I had had no such mental aberration.  
> It 
> confirmed that, after the root screen prompt, I had typed:
> aptitude install libreoffice-grammarcheck-en-gb
> and nothing else - well, , of course.

The outcome of the command may very well be due to previous history
during during the upgrade. You really need to look at that before
concluding it is aptitude itself which is at fault. /var/log/apt is
the place to scour for clues.

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Brian]

On Fri 01 Jul 2016 at 13:56:22 +0200, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 01, 2016 at 11:42:58AM +, Curt wrote:
> > On 2016-07-01,   wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> > > GNU grep 2.20, Debian package grep 2.20-4.1 -- progress or regression?
> 
> [...]
> 
> > Must be progress. GNU grep 2.12 here.

Bug #678652.

And just to get back vaguely to the topic. Why search the whole of /etc
when apt and aptitude have their config files in /etc/apt?

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[tomas]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On Fri, Jul 01, 2016 at 11:42:58AM +, Curt wrote:
> On 2016-07-01,   wrote:

[...]

> > GNU grep 2.20, Debian package grep 2.20-4.1 -- progress or regression?

[...]

> Must be progress. GNU grep 2.12 here.

Phew :-)

thanks
- -- t
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=rlpl
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Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Curt]

On 2016-07-01,   wrote:
>
>> I looked it up in the man page too.  It said:
>> 
>>  -R, -r, --recursive
>>  Read  all  files  under each directory, recursively; this
>>  is equivalent to the -d recurse option.
>
> Hm. My man page seems more complete (it's the one in Debian coming with
> GNU grep 2.20, Debian package grep 2.20-4.1 -- progress or regression?
>
> [...]

Must be progress. GNU grep 2.12 here.

-- 
Même l’avenir n’est plus ce qu’il était. 
Paul Valéry  

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Thomas Schmitt]

H,

Dario Strbenac wrote:
> Have you considered upgrading your customer's computer to Windows 10
> instead ? It's free to do until the end of the month!

Beware, Microsoft had to pay 10,000 USD in damages after Windows 10
installed itself on a customer's computer.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[tomas]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On Fri, Jul 01, 2016 at 09:36:16AM +, Curt wrote:
> On 2016-07-01,   wrote:
> >
> > I freely admit I didn't know, but now I do:
> >
> >  -R follows (recursively) symbolic links
> >  -r follows a symbolic link only if it is the top-level argument
> 
> I looked it up in the man page too.  It said:
> 
>  -R, -r, --recursive
>  Read  all  files  under each directory, recursively; this
>  is equivalent to the -d recurse option.

Hm. My man page seems more complete (it's the one in Debian coming with
GNU grep 2.20, Debian package grep 2.20-4.1 -- progress or regression?

[...]

> The info page also talks about why grep reports binary file matches, but
> suppresses the output (not useful and display-mucking). You can force
> grep to display output from seemingly binary files with the '-a' flag or
> eliminate the binary file matches messages with the '-I' flag.

I also enjoy the -A and -B options, while we're at it :^)

regards
- -- t
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Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Jörg-Volker Peetz]

Gene Heskett wrote on 07/01/16 01:35:
> On Thursday 30 June 2016 19:25:37 Lisi Reisz wrote:
> 

> No, thats just grep being grep, it says that of ANY binary file it tries 
> to read as text.  I have spent days pouring over the manpages for grep, 
> looking for a option to feed it to make grep quit that, simply because 
> its so verbose that what you are looking for can get lost in its 
> blathering about that.
> 
> Cheers, Gene Heskett
> 
Is 'grep -rI /etc' doing what you want? The switch "-I" should "process a binary
file as if it did not contain matching data".

Regards,
jvp.

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Lisi Reisz]

On Friday 01 July 2016 07:00:08 Dario Strbenac wrote:
> Have you considered upgrading your customer's computer to Windows 10
> instead ? It's free to do until the end of the month!

:-))  ROTFLOL!  It hasn't ever seen Windows, this lucky computer.  So I can't 
upgrade!!

Lisi

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Curt]

On 2016-07-01,   wrote:
>
> I freely admit I didn't know, but now I do:
>
>  -R follows (recursively) symbolic links
>  -r follows a symbolic link only if it is the top-level argument

I looked it up in the man page too.  It said:

 -R, -r, --recursive
 Read  all  files  under each directory, recursively; this
 is equivalent to the -d recurse option.

Only the info page gives the distinction you've noted above.
('--recursive' is equivalent to 'r' and 'deference-recursive' is
equivalent to '-R')

The info page also talks about why grep reports binary file matches, but
suppresses the output (not useful and display-mucking). You can force
grep to display output from seemingly binary files with the '-a' flag or
eliminate the binary file matches messages with the '-I' flag.

Whew.

-- 
Hypertext--or should I say the ideology of hypertext?--is ultrademocratic and
so entirely in harmony with the demagogic appeals to cultural democracy that
accompany (and distract one’s attention from) the ever-tightening grip of 
plutocratic capitalism. - Susan Sontag

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Dario Strbenac]

Have you considered upgrading your customer's computer to Windows 10 instead ? 
It's free to do until the end of the month!

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[tomas]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On Fri, Jul 01, 2016 at 09:42:09AM +0200, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

[...]

> And I have paid tribute to the (in the man/info pages) unnamed authors
> (but one can find out [1]) who gave me such a little jewel.

Eh, sorry. Forgot

[1] 

- -- t
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=rSEH
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Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[tomas]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
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On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 06:57:06PM -0400, Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Thursday 30 June 2016 16:12:46 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> 
> > grep -r Assume-Yes /etc
> 
> 100% missing here, but lemme see what happens when I use the recursive -R 
> since I can't ever recall using the lower case r for recursion.

Kids, read the man pages. It's good for you :-)

(meant, of course, a bit tongue-in-cheek)

(Actually in this case the info page is better, but perhaps too far away
from the comfort zone. Grep's man page is excellent).

I know man pages are sometimes inscrutable, but *this* is the kind of
occassion I always take to learn something: WTF is the difference
between -r and -R?

After doing this a couple of times one gets a better and better mental
map of the documentation.

I freely admit I didn't know, but now I do:

 -R follows (recursively) symbolic links
 -r follows a symbolic link only if it is the top-level argument

But what I wanted to point out is more the "collateral benefit": I am now
more acquainted with the landscape in grep's man page, now I know that little
shed -r next to the tall tree -R, just past the river, --include=GLOB.

And I have paid tribute to the (in the man/info pages) unnamed authors
(but one can find out [1]) who gave me such a little jewel.

> That took at least 3 or 4 minutes to complete, whereas the -r was back in 
> 500 milliseconds or so.

Big -R should take longer if there are any symlinks in /etc pointing to
massive trees elsewhere. That said, do take caching into account. The
first grep will tend to take significantly longer. Here's from my box
(I elided some warnings because as a user I'm not allowed to nose in
every /etc subdirectory

After explicitly flushing caches (echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches):

tomas@rasputin:~$ time find /etc > /dev/null
real0m0.494s
user0m0.028s
sys 0m0.112s

tomas@rasputin:~$ time find /etc > /dev/null
real0m0.023s
user0m0.008s
sys 0m0.016s

That makes for a rough factor of 20 real time. RAM is faster :-)

> The only positive response should be a never mind:
> 
> /etc/httpd/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/aptdaemon/console.py:if 
> (not apt_pkg.config.find_b("APT::Get::Assume-Yes") and

I agree with your analysis: this seems irrelevant. No fish in
there :-)

Regards
- -- t
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Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[David Wright]

On Thu 30 Jun 2016 at 22:41:57 (-0400), Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Thursday 30 June 2016 20:51:37 David Wright wrote:
> > On Thu 30 Jun 2016 at 19:35:44 (-0400), Gene Heskett wrote:
> > > On Thursday 30 June 2016 19:25:37 Lisi Reisz wrote:
> > > > On Thursday 30 June 2016 21:12:46 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> > > > > On Thu, 30 Jun 2016, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > > > > > Thats not excusable behavior, but whats worse is that debian's
> > > > > > people are denying there is a problem.  'scuse me? I swear,
> > > > > > they couldn't smell coffee with a nose full of it.
> > > > >
> > > > > Well, if either of you two (that suffered the runaway aptitude
> > > > > issue) still have the /etc of the box that caused trouble,
> > > > > kindly do this:
> > > > >
> > > > > grep -r Assume-Yes /etc
> > > > >
> > > > > If it returns any match in the aptitude config files, there you
> > > > > have it.
> > > >
> > > > I have this on my desktop at home:
> > > >
> > > > root@Tux-II:/home/lisi# grep -R Assume-Yes /etc
> > > > grep: /etc/fonts/conf.d/70-no-bitmaps.conf: No such file or
> > > > directory Binary file /etc/alternatives/aptitude matches
> > > > root@Tux-II:/home/lisi
> > > >
> > > > It rather looks as though I should be worried?
> > >
> > > No, thats just grep being grep, it says that of ANY binary file it
> > > tries to read as text.  I have spent days pouring over the manpages
> > > for grep, looking for a option to feed it to make grep quit that,
> > > simply because its so verbose that what you are looking for can get
> > > lost in its blathering about that.
> >
> > I have no idea what that's meant to be the explanation for.
> 
> For the fact that it claimed /etc/alternatives/aptitude was a match when 
> Lisi ran the correct grep as quoted in a previous email.

It claimed it matched because it *did* match. grep prints matches;
it's what's on the tin.

There's nothing verbose about it: quite the opposite in fact.
With a text file, it would have printed *all* the matching
lines. Here, in a binary file, any number of matches is confirmed
("claimed" in your parlance) by merely one line.

> > Why does Binary file /etc/alternatives/aptitude trigger a match?
> 
> Because it is?
> 
> gene@coyote:/opt$ file /etc/alternatives/aptitude
> /etc/alternatives/aptitude: symbolic link to /usr/bin/aptitude-curses
> gene@coyote:/opt$ file /usr/bin/aptitude-curses
> /usr/bin/aptitude-curses: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, Intel 80386, 
> version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-linux.so.2, 
> for GNU/Linux 2.6.26, 
> BuildID[sha1]=3508f8a2610e542bc916835e4caea373c28eb8f0, stripped

That explains why it says "Binary file", not why it matched.
I explained both why it's a binary and why it matched.

> > What you were running was aptitude, obviously. On my laptop:
> 
> Which "you" are you refering to, because Lisi and I have shared that same 
> leaky boat experience with aptitude.

Both of you, at different times. Why does that matter?

> > $ which aptitude
> > /usr/bin/aptitude
> > $ ls -l /usr/bin/aptitude
> > lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 26 Oct 10  2012 /usr/bin/aptitude ->
> > /etc/alternatives/aptitude $ ls -l /etc/alternatives/aptitude
> > lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 24 Oct 10  2012 /etc/alternatives/aptitude ->
> > /usr/bin/aptitude-curses $ ls -l /usr/bin/aptitude-curses
> > -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4340528 Nov  8  2014 /usr/bin/aptitude-curses
> >
> > (The last line might be different if you use some version other than
> > curses.)
> >
> > So the question becomes Why does the binary file
> > /usr/bin/aptitude-curses, that you actually run, match?
> 
> Who knows, but grep, for this job, lies like a cheap rug.

No it doesn't. It's a binary. It matches. Both those statements
made by grep are true. Or is your dispute with the fact that
/etc/alternatives/aptitude is in fact a link? So what: we're
dealing with the output of grep -R, and R forces grep to follow
links regardless.

>file will tell 
> you more. And it gives a valid answer that aptitude-curses is in fact a 
> binary file.  And thats what worried Lisi, needlessly.

Why would Lisi worry about a binary file in /etc/alternatives? That's
what it's stuffed full of, if you're following links. 89 ELFs/251 on
my laptop. Only 33/251 are plain text files.

What "grep -R Assume-Yes /etc" was meant to be doing was searching for
some nook or cranny where aptitude was being told to assume "yes" in
answer to questions it might pose. *Any* match *might* lead one to
suppose that the search had been successful, which *would* be worrying.
However, the explanation for the match shows that the search was
not successful: it was just a false alarm caused by... (explanation
follows as it did originally)...

> > Well, in order to decide whether you have typed
> > aptitude --assume-yes
> > aptitude needs to contain the string "assume-yes" against which to
> > check your typing. Ditto Aptitude::CmdLine::Assume-Yes for checking
> > a

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 30 June 2016 20:51:37 David Wright wrote:

> On Thu 30 Jun 2016 at 19:35:44 (-0400), Gene Heskett wrote:
> > On Thursday 30 June 2016 19:25:37 Lisi Reisz wrote:
> > > On Thursday 30 June 2016 21:12:46 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh 
wrote:
> > > > On Thu, 30 Jun 2016, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > > > > Thats not excusable behavior, but whats worse is that debian's
> > > > > people are denying there is a problem.  'scuse me? I swear,
> > > > > they couldn't smell coffee with a nose full of it.
> > > >
> > > > Well, if either of you two (that suffered the runaway aptitude
> > > > issue) still have the /etc of the box that caused trouble,
> > > > kindly do this:
> > > >
> > > > grep -r Assume-Yes /etc
> > > >
> > > > If it returns any match in the aptitude config files, there you
> > > > have it.
> > >
> > > I have this on my desktop at home:
> > >
> > > root@Tux-II:/home/lisi# grep -R Assume-Yes /etc
> > > grep: /etc/fonts/conf.d/70-no-bitmaps.conf: No such file or
> > > directory Binary file /etc/alternatives/aptitude matches
> > > root@Tux-II:/home/lisi
> > >
> > > It rather looks as though I should be worried?
> >
> > No, thats just grep being grep, it says that of ANY binary file it
> > tries to read as text.  I have spent days pouring over the manpages
> > for grep, looking for a option to feed it to make grep quit that,
> > simply because its so verbose that what you are looking for can get
> > lost in its blathering about that.
>
> I have no idea what that's meant to be the explanation for.

For the fact that it claimed /etc/alternatives/aptitude was a match when 
Lisi ran the correct grep as quoted in a previous email.

> Why does Binary file /etc/alternatives/aptitude trigger a match?

Because it is?

gene@coyote:/opt$ file /etc/alternatives/aptitude
/etc/alternatives/aptitude: symbolic link to /usr/bin/aptitude-curses
gene@coyote:/opt$ file /usr/bin/aptitude-curses
/usr/bin/aptitude-curses: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, Intel 80386, 
version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-linux.so.2, 
for GNU/Linux 2.6.26, 
BuildID[sha1]=3508f8a2610e542bc916835e4caea373c28eb8f0, stripped

> What you were running was aptitude, obviously. On my laptop:

Which "you" are you refering to, because Lisi and I have shared that same 
leaky boat experience with aptitude.

> $ which aptitude
> /usr/bin/aptitude
> $ ls -l /usr/bin/aptitude
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 26 Oct 10  2012 /usr/bin/aptitude ->
> /etc/alternatives/aptitude $ ls -l /etc/alternatives/aptitude
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 24 Oct 10  2012 /etc/alternatives/aptitude ->
> /usr/bin/aptitude-curses $ ls -l /usr/bin/aptitude-curses
> -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4340528 Nov  8  2014 /usr/bin/aptitude-curses
>
> (The last line might be different if you use some version other than
> curses.)
>
> So the question becomes Why does the binary file
> /usr/bin/aptitude-curses, that you actually run, match?

Who knows, but grep, for this job, lies like a cheap rug.  file will tell 
you more. And it gives a valid answer that aptitude-curses is in fact a 
binary file.  And thats what worried Lisi, needlessly.

> Well, in order to decide whether you have typed
> aptitude --assume-yes
> aptitude needs to contain the string "assume-yes" against which to
> check your typing. Ditto Aptitude::CmdLine::Assume-Yes for checking
> against the configuration file.
>
> So a match here is no surprise and no worry.
>
> However, you should also check for anything in /root/.aptitude/config
> as that could override the /etc/ stuff. (Probably nothing.)
> So your problem might boil down to why aptitude thought all those
> packages should go, ie what happened to the package(s) at the top
> of the dependency chain(s) whose job was to keep them all installed.
>
> Sorry I don't have much experience of aptitude other than the
> visual interface (ie no action given on the command line).
> I'm really an apt-get user. In order to remove "unused" packages,
> I have to type   apt-get autoremove   which I sometimes do in response
> to its telling me there are such packages lying around. It's not
> easy for me to tell from the documentation whether "Installed packages
> will not be removed unless they are unused (see the section “Managing
> Automatically Installed Packages” in the aptitude reference manual)¹"
> means that they'll be removed automatically without any further
> confirmation.
>
> ¹safe-upgrade in man aptitude.
>
> Cheers,
> David.


Cheers David, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[David Wright]

On Thu 30 Jun 2016 at 19:35:44 (-0400), Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Thursday 30 June 2016 19:25:37 Lisi Reisz wrote:
> > On Thursday 30 June 2016 21:12:46 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> > > On Thu, 30 Jun 2016, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > > > Thats not excusable behavior, but whats worse is that debian's
> > > > people are denying there is a problem.  'scuse me? I swear, they
> > > > couldn't smell coffee with a nose full of it.
> > >
> > > Well, if either of you two (that suffered the runaway aptitude
> > > issue) still have the /etc of the box that caused trouble, kindly do
> > > this:
> > >
> > > grep -r Assume-Yes /etc
> > >
> > > If it returns any match in the aptitude config files, there you have
> > > it.
> >
> > I have this on my desktop at home:
> >
> > root@Tux-II:/home/lisi# grep -R Assume-Yes /etc
> > grep: /etc/fonts/conf.d/70-no-bitmaps.conf: No such file or directory
> > Binary file /etc/alternatives/aptitude matches
> > root@Tux-II:/home/lisi
> >
> > It rather looks as though I should be worried?
> 
> No, thats just grep being grep, it says that of ANY binary file it tries 
> to read as text.  I have spent days pouring over the manpages for grep, 
> looking for a option to feed it to make grep quit that, simply because 
> its so verbose that what you are looking for can get lost in its 
> blathering about that.

I have no idea what that's meant to be the explanation for.

Why does Binary file /etc/alternatives/aptitude trigger a match?

What you were running was aptitude, obviously. On my laptop:

$ which aptitude
/usr/bin/aptitude
$ ls -l /usr/bin/aptitude
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 26 Oct 10  2012 /usr/bin/aptitude -> 
/etc/alternatives/aptitude
$ ls -l /etc/alternatives/aptitude
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 24 Oct 10  2012 /etc/alternatives/aptitude -> 
/usr/bin/aptitude-curses
$ ls -l /usr/bin/aptitude-curses
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4340528 Nov  8  2014 /usr/bin/aptitude-curses

(The last line might be different if you use some version other than curses.)

So the question becomes Why does the binary file
/usr/bin/aptitude-curses, that you actually run, match?

Well, in order to decide whether you have typed
aptitude --assume-yes
aptitude needs to contain the string "assume-yes" against which to
check your typing. Ditto Aptitude::CmdLine::Assume-Yes for checking
against the configuration file.

So a match here is no surprise and no worry.

However, you should also check for anything in /root/.aptitude/config
as that could override the /etc/ stuff. (Probably nothing.)
So your problem might boil down to why aptitude thought all those
packages should go, ie what happened to the package(s) at the top
of the dependency chain(s) whose job was to keep them all installed.

Sorry I don't have much experience of aptitude other than the
visual interface (ie no action given on the command line).
I'm really an apt-get user. In order to remove "unused" packages,
I have to type   apt-get autoremove   which I sometimes do in response
to its telling me there are such packages lying around. It's not
easy for me to tell from the documentation whether "Installed packages
will not be removed unless they are unused (see the section “Managing
Automatically Installed Packages” in the aptitude reference manual)¹"
means that they'll be removed automatically without any further
confirmation.

¹safe-upgrade in man aptitude.

Cheers,
David.

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Lisi Reisz]

On Friday 01 July 2016 00:35:44 Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Thursday 30 June 2016 19:25:37 Lisi Reisz wrote:
> > On Thursday 30 June 2016 21:12:46 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> > > On Thu, 30 Jun 2016, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > > > Thats not excusable behavior, but whats worse is that debian's
> > > > people are denying there is a problem.  'scuse me? I swear, they
> > > > couldn't smell coffee with a nose full of it.
> > > >
> > > > Cheers, Gene Heskett
> > >
> > > Well, if either of you two (that suffered the runaway aptitude
> > > issue) still have the /etc of the box that caused trouble, kindly do
> > > this:
> > >
> > > grep -r Assume-Yes /etc
> > >
> > > If it returns any match in the aptitude config files, there you have
> > > it.
> >
> > I have this on my desktop at home:
> >
> > root@Tux-II:/home/lisi# grep -R Assume-Yes /etc
> > grep: /etc/fonts/conf.d/70-no-bitmaps.conf: No such file or directory
> > Binary file /etc/alternatives/aptitude matches
> > root@Tux-II:/home/lisi
> >
> > It rather looks as though I should be worried?
> >
> > Lisi
>
> No, thats just grep being grep, it says that of ANY binary file it tries
> to read as text.  I have spent days pouring over the manpages for grep,
> looking for a option to feed it to make grep quit that, simply because
> its so verbose that what you are looking for can get lost in its
> blathering about that.

Thanks, Gene. :-)

Lisi

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Lisi Reisz]

On Friday 01 July 2016 00:14:34 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> On Fri, 01 Jul 2016, Lisi Reisz wrote:
> > assumed, it wasn't asked to remove anything.  It was asked to add one
> > thing which in now way depended on anything removed.  That is what
> > puzzles me.  And
>
> I don't know why it would do that.  Well, it shouldn't ask about
> deleting one thousand packages if you asked it to install one package...
> but it certainly is supposed to ask about installing that one package
> *after* informing you that it would remove one thousand packages in
> order to do that.

Yes.  I expressed myself badly.  I was having difficulty seeing the screen and 
therefore typing.  If I ask for one thing and it asks no questions at all I 
expect it to install only one thing.  If it wants to install a load of 
dependencies, or, even worse, remove half the system, I expect it ot ask 
me!!!

> Note that I am assuming neither of you did "aptitude -y", that would be
> bad and would also explain what happened.

I used bash's history to confirm that I had had no such mental aberration.  It 
confirmed that, after the root screen prompt, I had typed:
aptitude install libreoffice-grammarcheck-en-gb
and nothing else - well, , of course.

Lisi

>
> > And why did ctrl-C have no effect at all?
>
> Try this when you open a root session (in a typical console, and
> certainly in a typical graphical terminal):
>
>   stty sane

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 30 June 2016 19:25:37 Lisi Reisz wrote:

> On Thursday 30 June 2016 21:12:46 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> > On Thu, 30 Jun 2016, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > > Thats not excusable behavior, but whats worse is that debian's
> > > people are denying there is a problem.  'scuse me? I swear, they
> > > couldn't smell coffee with a nose full of it.
> > >
> > > Cheers, Gene Heskett
> >
> > Well, if either of you two (that suffered the runaway aptitude
> > issue) still have the /etc of the box that caused trouble, kindly do
> > this:
> >
> > grep -r Assume-Yes /etc
> >
> > If it returns any match in the aptitude config files, there you have
> > it.
>
> I have this on my desktop at home:
>
> root@Tux-II:/home/lisi# grep -R Assume-Yes /etc
> grep: /etc/fonts/conf.d/70-no-bitmaps.conf: No such file or directory
> Binary file /etc/alternatives/aptitude matches
> root@Tux-II:/home/lisi
>
> It rather looks as though I should be worried?
>
> Lisi

No, thats just grep being grep, it says that of ANY binary file it tries 
to read as text.  I have spent days pouring over the manpages for grep, 
looking for a option to feed it to make grep quit that, simply because 
its so verbose that what you are looking for can get lost in its 
blathering about that.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Lisi Reisz]

On Thursday 30 June 2016 21:12:46 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> On Thu, 30 Jun 2016, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > Thats not excusable behavior, but whats worse is that debian's people are
> > denying there is a problem.  'scuse me? I swear, they couldn't smell
> > coffee with a nose full of it.
> >
> > Cheers, Gene Heskett
>
> Well, if either of you two (that suffered the runaway aptitude issue)
> still have the /etc of the box that caused trouble, kindly do this:
>
> grep -r Assume-Yes /etc
>
> If it returns any match in the aptitude config files, there you have it.

I have this on my desktop at home:

root@Tux-II:/home/lisi# grep -R Assume-Yes /etc
grep: /etc/fonts/conf.d/70-no-bitmaps.conf: No such file or directory
Binary file /etc/alternatives/aptitude matches
root@Tux-II:/home/lisi

It rather looks as though I should be worried?

Lisi

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Fri, 01 Jul 2016, Lisi Reisz wrote:
> assumed, it wasn't asked to remove anything.  It was asked to add one thing 
> which in now way depended on anything removed.  That is what puzzles me.  And 

I don't know why it would do that.  Well, it shouldn't ask about
deleting one thousand packages if you asked it to install one package...
but it certainly is supposed to ask about installing that one package
*after* informing you that it would remove one thousand packages in
order to do that.

Note that I am assuming neither of you did "aptitude -y", that would be
bad and would also explain what happened.

> And why did ctrl-C have no effect at all?

Try this when you open a root session (in a typical console, and
certainly in a typical graphical terminal):

stty sane

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Lisi Reisz]

On Thursday 30 June 2016 17:25:41 Francesco Ariis wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 05:27:16PM +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote:
> > I ran
> > # aptitude install libreoffice-grammarcheck-en-gb
> > and aptitude just carried on without asking as is correct when there
> > is only one package; but it proceeded to uninstall my entire desktop
> > environment, hundreds of packages.
>
> Is this Debian or FrankenDebian?

You might well ask!!

Lis

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Lisi Reisz]

On Thursday 30 June 2016 20:27:03 Brian wrote:
> On Thu 30 Jun 2016 at 19:59:52 +0200, Hans wrote:
> > Correct myself:
> > > I used the log file and edited it that way, that I took all the
> > > packagages from it and made an "aptitude reinstall" in front of the
> > > package list.
> >
> > Then I made a shellscript of it, just added the shebang line and made it
> > executable with root-permissions.
>
> This is a viable approach but let us not lose sight of the fact that the
> situation is recoverable. It isn't as though something critical to the
> system has been removed; just a few packages which are easily put back
> on the existing system.

:-))  Thank you, Brian.  A comforting thought on which to go to bed.

Thanks to all of you who replied.  I am too shattered now to give considered 
responses to all of you, that is assuming that you would like them to be 
vaguely coherent!!

This was the desktop.  I am about to post in one of the of the threads about 
the laptop and whether my despairing decision to reinstall that has been 
misplaced.

Lisi

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Lisi Reisz]

On Thursday 30 June 2016 21:12:46 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> On Thu, 30 Jun 2016, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > Thats not excusable behavior, but whats worse is that debian's people are
> > denying there is a problem.  'scuse me? I swear, they couldn't smell
> > coffee with a nose full of it.
> >
> > Cheers, Gene Heskett
>
> Well, if either of you two (that suffered the runaway aptitude issue)
> still have the /etc of the box that caused trouble, kindly do this:
>
> grep -r Assume-Yes /etc
>
> If it returns any match in the aptitude config files, there you have it.

Thank you, Henrique.  I still have access to the box. Not immediately - but 
no-one will change anything unless I am there.  But whatever is or is not 
assumed, it wasn't asked to remove anything.  It was asked to add one thing 
which in now way depended on anything removed.  That is what puzzles me.  And 
the rest of the time it was asking as one would expect!!  But I will look and 
let the list know!

If there is, what then?

And why did ctrl-C have no effect at all?

Lisi

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 30 June 2016 16:12:46 Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:

> grep -r Assume-Yes /etc

100% missing here, but lemme see what happens when I use the recursive -R 
since I can't ever recall using the lower case r for recursion.

That took at least 3 or 4 minutes to complete, whereas the -r was back in 
500 milliseconds or so.

The only positive response should be a never mind:

/etc/httpd/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/aptdaemon/console.py:if 
(not apt_pkg.config.find_b("APT::Get::Assume-Yes") and

Everthing else is the ^&%$ binary file matches, or "no such file or 
directory"

So I do not see anything that looks like its my problem, and that file is 
a softlink to:
ls -l /usr/share/pyshared/aptdaemon/console.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 31055 Jun 11  
2012 /usr/share/pyshared/aptdaemon/console.py

Rather ancient and which doesn't look as if its ever been molested by me.

Next fishing holes address?  Nobody home at this one...

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Thu, 30 Jun 2016, Gene Heskett wrote:
> Thats not excusable behavior, but whats worse is that debian's people are 
> denying there is a problem.  'scuse me? I swear, they couldn't smell 
> coffee with a nose full of it.
> 
> Cheers, Gene Heskett

Well, if either of you two (that suffered the runaway aptitude issue)
still have the /etc of the box that caused trouble, kindly do this:

grep -r Assume-Yes /etc

If it returns any match in the aptitude config files, there you have it.

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 30 June 2016 12:27:16 Lisi Reisz wrote:

> I ran
> # aptitude install libreoffice-grammarcheck-en-gb
> and aptitude just carried on without asking as is correct when there
> is only one package; but it proceeded to uninstall my entire desktop
> environment, hundreds of packages.  I couldn't believe it and used the
> bash history to confirm that that was ALL I had typed.  Moreover, it
> wouldn't respond to control-C.
>
> Whatever happened?
>
> 
> And it isn't even my computer.
>
> Lisi

I know that face in palm feeling well Lisi, it bit me in a similar manner 
about 2 weeks ago. And was just as unstoppable.  Its a right PITA, and 
aptitude has now be declared personna-non-grata on my 4 systems.  
apt-get was able to put me back together eventually.

Thats not excusable behavior, but whats worse is that debian's people are 
denying there is a problem.  'scuse me? I swear, they couldn't smell 
coffee with a nose full of it.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Hans]

Correct myself:
> I used the log file and edited it that way, that I took all the packagages
> from it and made an "aptitude reinstall" in front of the package list.

Then I made a shellscript of it, just added the shebang line and made it 
executable with root-permissions.
 
Hans

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Hans]

> 5. Assess the damage. Glance at the output of 'dpkg -l | less'. Is X
>still about? The desktop? Anything obvious missing? Look at the files
>in /var/log/apt. All packages removed and installed are recorded.
>Supposedly aptitude also logs?
> 

I used the log file and edited it that way, that I took all the packagages from 
it and made an "aptitude reinstall" in front of the package list.

So I can be sure, all packages, which were uninstalled are now reinstalled.
As you did not use the switch "purge", I suppose, all configuration files are 
still existent.

For easy editing I am using kwrite, which has the ability to fill out vertical 
rows, not only in horizontal (like normal editors do).

Large rows I do fill with a unusual sign (i.e. a "#"). Later, when there is a 
"#" in each line, it can easily be successed with any other string you need, 
for example "aptitude reinstall -y".

Maybe this is an unusual way to fix a broken system, but doing so makes it very 
easy for me.

Just my 2 cents.

Good luck 

Hans

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Brian]

On Thu 30 Jun 2016 at 17:27:16 +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote:

> I ran
> # aptitude install libreoffice-grammarcheck-en-gb
> and aptitude just carried on without asking as is correct when there
> is only one package; but it proceeded to uninstall my entire desktop
> environment, hundreds of packages.  I couldn't believe it and used the
> bash history to confirm that that was ALL I had typed.  Moreover, it
> wouldn't respond to control-C.
> 
> Whatever happened?
> 
> 
> And it isn't even my computer.

Here is what I would do:

1. Check sources.list and 'apt-get update'.

2. 'apt-get upgrade' followed by 'apt-get dist-upgrade. I'd not be
   expecting anything to be done here.

3. 'apt-get install --reinstall systemd-sysv' to ensure the init system
   is in place. (Cargo cult has its uses. :))

4. Reboot. Should be safe because you've done it earlier.

5. Assess the damage. Glance at the output of 'dpkg -l | less'. Is X
   still about? The desktop? Anything obvious missing? Look at the files
   in /var/log/apt. All packages removed and installed are recorded.
   Supposedly aptitude also logs?

6. Proceed to install anything which is you think is missing.

7. Keep the customer in the dark or spin them some tale.

8. Have a glass of sherry.

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Charlie Kravetz]

On Thu, 30 Jun 2016 17:27:16 +0100
Lisi Reisz  wrote:

>I ran
># aptitude install libreoffice-grammarcheck-en-gb
>and aptitude just carried on without asking as is correct when there
>is only one package; but it proceeded to uninstall my entire desktop
>environment, hundreds of packages.  I couldn't believe it and used the
>bash history to confirm that that was ALL I had typed.  Moreover, it
>wouldn't respond to control-C.
>
>Whatever happened?
>
>
>And it isn't even my computer.
>
>Lisi
>


I believe that is one of the complaints from Gene, too. 

-- 
Charlie Kravetz
Linux Registered User Number 425914
[http://linuxcounter.net/user/425914.html]
Never let anyone steal your DREAM.   [http://keepingdreams.com]

Re: catastrophe - but how? Aptitude goes mad

[Francesco Ariis]

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 05:27:16PM +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote:
> I ran
> # aptitude install libreoffice-grammarcheck-en-gb
> and aptitude just carried on without asking as is correct when there
> is only one package; but it proceeded to uninstall my entire desktop
> environment, hundreds of packages.

Is this Debian or FrankenDebian?