mjhjmtu

So I want to remove (more exactly purge) some packages like gnome-games from Debian 6. As already expected and know by research Aptitude also wants to remove in example the meta-package gnome, as without the gnome-games the gnome package is not fully installed. No problem with that. But now the difference comes: Aptitude also wants to remove a ton of other important packages! How can I just avoid that? I cannot understand what in example network-manager has to do with gnome-games. Unmarking gnome-games as manually installed does not make a difference.

However, this is my console dump:

root@testing:/home/branch# aptitude purge gnome-games
The following packages will be REMOVED: 
gnome-gamesp 
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B of archives. After unpacking 2,490 kB will be freed.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
gnome: Depends: gnome-games (>= 1:2.30) but it is not going to be installed.
The following actions will resolve these dependencies:

Remove the following packages:
1) gnome 

Accept this solution? [Y/n/q/?] Y
The following packages will be REMOVED:
aptdaemonu binfmt-supportu cli-commonu dnsmasq-baseu epiphany-extensionsu
evolution-exchangeu gdebiu gdebi-coreu gedit-pluginsu gnomea
gnome-codec-installu gnome-gamesp gnome-officeu gnome-themes-extrasu
gnome-themes-moreu gtk2-engines-smoothu libart2.0-cilu libgconf2.0-cilu 
libgee2u libgexiv2-0u libglade2.0-cilu libglib2.0-cilu libgmime2.4-cilu 
libgnome-vfs2.0-cilu libgnome2.24-cilu libgnomepanel2.24-cilu libgpod-commonu
libgpod4u libgtk2.0-cilu libmono-addins-gui0.2-cilu libmono-addins0.2-cilu
libmono-cairo2.0-cilu libmono-corlib2.0-cilu libmono-i18n-west2.0-cilu
libmono-posix2.0-cilu libmono-security2.0-cilu libmono-sharpzip2.84-cilu
libmono-system2.0-cilu libmtp8u libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cilu libndesk-dbus1.0-cilu
libnm-glib-vpn1u libpcsclite1u lifereau liferea-datau media-player-infou
mobile-broadband-provider-infou modemmanageru mono-2.0-gacu mono-gacu
mono-runtimeu network-manageru network-manager-gnomeu pppu python-aptdaemonu
python-aptdaemon-gtku python-makou python-markupsafeu python-vteu
python-webkitu rhythmboxu rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorderu rhythmbox-pluginsu
shotwellu simple-scanu software-centeru tclu tcl8.4u tomboyu totem-mozillau
transmission-commonu transmission-gtku update-manager-coreu update-manager-gnomeu
update-notifieru update-notifier-commonu usb-modeswitchu usb-modeswitch-datau
wpasupplicantu
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 79 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B of archives. After unpacking 143 MB will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] n
Abort.

Edit: Aptitude wants to remove all the packages as it assumes they are unused after removing the gnome metapackage. But that definitely is not the case. How to tell aptitude that it simply keeps those packages? It does not give any other option.

It appears that all of those were automatically installed as dependencies of the gnome metapackage. As you said, the gnome metapackage is incomplete without the gnome-games package, so it must be removed. That renders all the packages listed unused and so aptitude wants to remove them. There may be a way to remove gnome without removing its unused dependencies, but a quick search didn't show one and I suspect that it would try to uninstall them every time you removed something else. Your best bet is probably to figure out which of those packages you explicitly want and mark them manually installed, then let it uninstall the remainder if they're still unneeded.

For Debian and spinoffs, after you login to Gnome hit CtrlAltF1 and get to a console window.

Login as root OR yourself then sudo su (different distros get stupid about root, sudo and su).

Type apt-get remove gnome-games without quotes and press Enter- it will say its getting rid of gnome and gnome-games - choose Yes or OK - it will mark them all for removal.

Then type apt-get install gnome-core and choose Yes to install it will mark gnome-core to stay and show you all the game apps that are no longer in use and can be auto removed.

Then type apt-get autoremove and you should see all the game data about to be blasted out and your ready to go - no baloney, no removing entire gnome etc.

apt-get clean or apt-get autoclean can get you some disk space from cached install files.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AptGet/Howto

By default, aptitude looks for and uninstalls dependencies, which is USUALLY exactly what you want to do. The comprehensive gnome-games package apparently has various games that include these diverse dependencies.

HOWEVER, the dpkg -r command does NOT look for dependencies; it just removes precisely what you tell it to. In many cases that would be a bad thing (as it could potentially leave your system unstable), but in this instance, instability would be unlikely and it may be the best solution.