Just some follow up: While updating via dselect, my system AGAIN tried to remove the gcc and gcc-2.95 packages tonight (17 Dec 01). It didn't do this with a "apt-get upgrade" command I had just run previously. The reason for running dselect was some packages were held back, and I wanted to see why.
I did some investigating and it appeared to be a conflict between the "gcc-doc" package and these two packages and my system REALLY wanted to update the gcc-doc program in the worst way! I noticed a "task-c-dev" package on my system, which suggested the gcc-doc package. I removed it (task-c-dev) but the system still wanted to install the gcc-doc package. Further investigation revealed the presence of a "task-devel-common" package, which also suggested the gcc-doc package. Both of these were listed in the "obsolete" section of dselect. I removed this second "task" package and things reverted to normal. Apparently these two "obsolete" packages were somehow indirectly taking precedence over the gcc and gcc-2.95 packages that I wanted to keep, even though the "gcc-doc" package was only "suggested". There seems to be an error in logic here...somewhere. This raises a question. What is the correct way to handle these "obsolete" packges? Does dselect just list them for reference/info, or will it actively try to remove them?? I recall one past experience where I tried to remove them manually and got into some serious dependency problems. Cheers, -Don Spoon-
