problems in a net upgrade to Debian 8.1

[zlinw]

One of my systems has had Debian 7.x (AMD64) installed from 3 DVD's and 
subsequently it has been upgraded over the internet to testing a number of 
times. The last of these upgrades was sometime back (6 months or so). This 
was upgraded to 8.1 yesterday. Unfortunately its left the package system in 
a poor state. Note, previous experience doing this shows Debian's package 
system does not like this combination (install from cd/dvd and update via 
the internet) to go beyond the next version number. 

Aptitude wants to remove a large number of packages like blender, gimp, 
exiv2, the list going on and on. dselect how ever is much more on the ball, 
it only wanting to remove imagemagik and graphicsmagik. Apt does not appear 
to know what its doing, for instance it wishs to remove blender for 2 unmet 
dependencies. Curiously dselect, dpkg AND looking in the /var/lib/dpkg/info 
directory shows these dependcies ARE on the system. 

It's distinctly possible apt is not getting on well with a system thats 
been instaled from DVD's. I have suffered from similar package system  
corruption from this cause in the past. The problem being as almost (iff 
not all) debian developers use a net install and upgrade the CD/DVD install 
does not get tested very well. 

Its generally possible to resolve a situation like this with dpkg, it does 
require though much mucking around. 

Note: Both the apt package lists and the dpkg package lists have been 
updated, experience that these being out of sync can cause weird problems. 

Anyone have any ideas, it looks as though I may have to install 8.1 from 
scratch, something I am NOT really looking forward to due to what packages 
I like to select, package selection taking forever. 

Lindsay
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