Debian Aptitude novice user unintentionally updates all operating system packages 
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I decided to try Aptitude instead of apt-get install, because I wanted to get the ksnapshot screenshot utility onto my Debian “sid” (unstable) system. I located ksnapshot fine using the Aptitude search function. But, somehow, in trying to approve the ksnapshot install, I ended up approving what appears to have been a complete update of all packages on my system.
I wanted to stop what was happening, but did nothing because files were apparently being deleted as the process continued. Ending up with a system that was part way between two sets of packages sounded like a recipe for disaster, so I let the process continue.
Finally, after about 10 minutes of apparent complete reconfiguration of my system, Aptitude brought me back to a screen that was related to ksnapshot! Apparently, it needed something that wasn’t on my system. I clicked “g” (which, for some reason, is the key that means “Download/Install/Remove Pkgs” in Aptitude).
A message appeared telling me “No packages will be installed, removed, or upgraded. Some packages could be upgraded, but you have not chosen to upgrade them. Type U to prepare an upgrade.” Hmm.. I’d have thought that by requesting to install software, any necessary upgrades would have occurred. In any case, I clicked Enter to get rid of the error message, then typed “U”.
Several files were downloaded. I clicked Enter to move on, and then saw a message indicating the entire process had failed: “The following signatures could not be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY …”
Great. At that point I punted on Aptitude (yes, really) and checked my /boot directory: none of the operating system boot files had been changed, so I felt confident I’d at least be able to boot the system the next time I powered down. Truly, it was a relief to see these files still there, since during a previous Debian Unstable update of some critical system files the boot files were deleted, but new versions were not created because the update process failed! At least that didn’t happen as part of my Aptitude adventure.
But I still really wanted ksnapshot. So I tried getting it the old fashioned way:
apt-get install ksnapshot
That worked, though when I run ksnapshot I get a slew of strange warning messages. But the program seems to work!
Their comments
1. Matthew Poer Says:
October 8th, 2006 at 2:32 pm e
Well, the ‘g’ (I believe) is for ‘get’ like as in ‘apt-get’. Aptitude likes to mark upgrades for you. It probably ran an equivalnt to ‘apt-get dist-upgrade’. If you haven’t upgraded things, it could take a few minutes. And if you’re running ’sid’ there could be a lot of upgrades, as that is the most active development area.
Give Synaptic a try. It is a nice pretty [GTK] GUI to the Apt system, and a bit easier to use than Aptitude.
[copied from eQuickFixes.com] () - 22 10 06 - 07:16
