I didn't use dselect now for a long time, but i remember the feeling when i moved to aptitude: ah, _that's it_. It's far more illustrative and easier to oversee problems with it's tree structured info-link-like movement, and colors. If you give it a try, note that there might be a problem using dselect and aptitude together, since apt manages it's own database of dependencies, so for the first step i recommend just to 'update' it ( pressing 'u') and then browse through your packages, but don't make changes until you're ready to ditch dselect at all. You can move directly to a package typing a '/wordperfect' ( for example ), then, with the cursor on it's name, hit enter to dive into it. It shows you several status entries. Look for the entry 'Depends' -- if it's 'closed', open it with an 'enter' again. Missing packages are highlighted in red; there are more colors for each kind of possible status. You can proceed diving into on of them hitting 'enter' on their entry, infiniteley. With a 'q' you close the actually opened tree branch ( that is, movong back from where you've entered that piece ). On the same level with 'Depends' there always exists an 'Packages thet depends on' entry - these are the so called 'backward dependencies'. Before you ever deinstall or purge a package, you should have a look there. At the bottom, the actually installed version number is highlighted in white. There may be more than one conflict somewhere in the dependency tree - analyze carefully. Starting an (de-) installation with 'g' for go shows up what will be done first, before any action, giving you the chance to analyze the situation again, and discard some or any changes. It's just a newly created tree branch - you can start right from this list in the described way.
There's a short overview of key commands, hit '?' for it. Before you start using it seriously, you should read at least partly the /usr/share/doc/aptitude documentation. Aptitude automatically installs packages that are necessary and marks them so they are automatically removed again, if possible; but always shows you the proposed action before doing anything. I think it's rather safe especially for analyzing the situation. I'm thankful for the developers given me that tool. Never had any problems no more :-) hth -- michl. Paul King: > Dselect is now trying to make design decisions on my computer against my > wishes.
