Package: kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686 Version: 2.6.8-16 Severity: critical Most of the time when I try to uninstall a package that's critical to system functionality, it tells me I'm about to uninstall a core component and asks me to type, "Yes I know what I'm doing" or similar to continue.
$ sudo apt-get remove bash Reading Package Lists... Done Building Dependency Tree... Done The following packages will be REMOVED: bash hal hotplug udev WARNING: The following essential packages will be removed This should NOT be done unless you know exactly what you are doing! bash 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 4 to remove and 123 not upgraded. Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 3523kB disk space will be freed. You are about to do something potentially harmful To continue type in the phrase 'Yes, do as I say!' ?] n Abort. Imagine my surprise, then, when I did this: $ sudo apt-get remove dash Reading Package Lists... Done Building Dependency Tree... Done The following packages will be REMOVED: dash initrd-tools kernel-image-2.6-686 kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 4 to remove and 121 not upgraded. Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 45.6MB disk space will be freed. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n Abort. Now, I haven't actually verified that removing kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686 (which does contain the running kernel, yes) will break my system, but I'd be astonished if it didn't. (To be more precise, while removing vmlinuz shouldn't matter until I try to run lilo again, it also contains the /lib/modules directory.) I think a kernel image should be treated like a core package, requiring extra confirmation to uninstall. (Maybe it's more complicated, since a given kernel may not actually be the one that's running, but the user can always just type the full confirmation phrase to get around this, so if it's easier to implement I think it should just default to requiring extra confirmation.) I've classed this "critical" since it has the potential to make the system unusable if the user is not paying attention and hits Y (which would have been easy in this case, since "dash" seems like it would be just another shell). Probably the maintainers would class it less serious since the situation wouldn't come up very often, but I'll let them downgrade it if they feel its appropriate. -- System Information: Debian Release: testing/unstable APT prefers testing APT policy: (500, 'testing') Architecture: i386 (i686) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Kernel: Linux 2.6.8-2-686 Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968) Versions of packages kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686 depends on: ii coreutils [fileutils] 5.2.1-2 The GNU core utilities ii fileutils 5.2.1-2 The GNU file management utilities ii initrd-tools 0.1.81.1 tools to create initrd image for p ii module-init-tools 3.2-pre8-1 tools for managing Linux kernel mo kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686 recommends no packages. -- no debconf information -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
