*- On 9 Mar, Mark Phillips wrote about "What to do with "base"???" > My system is now uptodate with the newly released Slink, but there are > now a number of obsolete packages. In particular, there are two > _required_ packages listed as obsolete: > > ------- Obsolete/local Required packages in section base ------- > *__ Req base base 1.1.0-14 <none> > *** Req base slang0.99.38 0.99.38-6 <none> > > When dselect attempts to delete base, it complains that > > This is an essential package - it should not be removed. > > Now I could use dpkg to force its removal, but when I asked about this > on the list earlier, George Bonser told me: > > NO!!!!!!!! DO NOT REMOVE BASE! IT WILL KILL YOUR SYSTEM!!! > > Just wait, that is a known bug and is on the list of bugs that must be > fixed. Leave it until there is a solution for the > problem. Otherwise you will remove several vital packages. > > But now that Slink has been officially released, has this bug been > fixed? Is there a way to safely remove base? (Not to mention > slang0.99.38) >
If I remember correclty you can remove slang without a problem. The solution to remove base without waiting for a clean way to do it in dselect is, and I quote from http://www.debian.org/Lists-Archives/debian-user-9707/msg01109.html To: debian-user@lists.debian.org, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Eloy A. Paris) Subject: Re: 1.3.1 upgrade: getting rid of the package base 1.1.0-13 -- dselect and downgrading dosemu From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bruce Perens) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 97 16:45 PDT References: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: Bruce Perens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> However, edit /var/lib/dpkg/status and remove the paragraph about the "base" package, and that will effectively purge it. Forcing dpkg to remove the package removes all of the files in /dev. It's my error, sorry. Bruce Then remove the files /var/lib/dpkg/info/base.* That worked for me when I did it. <DISCLAIMER> YMMV, make backups of /var/lib/dpkg/status and /var/lib/dpkg/info/base.*. <DISCLAIMER> -- Brian --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Never criticize anybody until you have walked a mile in their shoes, because by that time you will be a mile away and have their shoes." - unknown Mechanical Engineering [EMAIL PROTECTED] Purdue University http://www.ecn.purdue.edu/~servis ---------------------------------------------------------------------