Theoretically apt-get remove ".*:*" (quotes so your shell isn't trying to expand it) would remove every package from your system. apt-get install ".*" on the other hand would install every available package (in the "best" architecture) on your system.
(apt-get uses regex, not globbing) Both is only theoretical as you can't remove all packages from your system as your system is just a big group of packages and whatever you do you can't instruct a system to eradicate itself. With the command above apt-get will try, but will fail along the way while trying to remove packages it needs to remove packages … On the other hand you can't install all packages as some of them do not play nice with each other (and therefore conflict with each other). Different mail-transport-agents (exim4, postfix, …) are a good example for this. Beside, given the enormous size of the archive nowadays even an install of all packages which could be co-installed is barely useable. (An APT developer used to have an image with ~ 20.000 packages installed just to get an idea of how APT and other components would behave … fun to play with, but nothing you want to have in production.) -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1148012 Title: apt-get install * gives some not existing packages To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apt/+bug/1148012/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
