On Thu, 8 Jul 2021 17:59:46 +0200
Alessandro Vesely via Dng <dng@???> wrote:

> On Wed 07/Jul/2021 23:10:15 +0200 Patrick Bartek via Dng wrote:
> > On Mon, 5 Jul 2021 19:41:43 +0200
> > Alessandro Vesely <vesely@???> wrote:
> >>
> >> Here's the sequence of what I did: I wrote to the list each time,
> >> so I know the exactly when.
> >>
> >> 4 January 2020: migrate from debian/stretch to beowulf
> >> https://lists.dyne.org/lurker/message/20200104.101800.7b0f18cb.en.html
> >> Beowulf was the stable version at the time. Afterwards, I upgraded
> >> it regularly and smoothly.
> >
> > I'm assuming you didn't try to migrate from Stretch to Beowulf
> > directly before doing the ascii migration.
>
>
> Hm.. yes, you must be right.
>
>
> > And I keep detailed logs of what I do.
>
>
> On a server, I used to run release dist-upgrades under script. I
> gave up after realizing I never dug into those files. The last time
> I just kept the tripwire log. (Albeit tripwire leaves something to
> be desired w.r.t., say, subversion.)
>
> None on those on a client, which is this case.

My install log is very "low tech": I just write everything I installed,
troubleshooted, fixed, etc step-by-step on yellow, legal-size paper
even though apt-get has its own logs. I find a paper log easier to
reference.

>

> >>> How did you remove those packages?    

> >>
> >> No idea. Didn't remove them intentionally. Not even sure /when/
> >> they were removed.
> >
> > During your migration to Beowulf and dist-upgrade to Chimaera, and
> > if you followed instructions, autoremove could have removed them as
> > part of the cleanup.
> >
> >>> [snip]
> >>>

> >>> Upgrade by design won't install major upgrades to apps, system
> >>> files, etc. which can occur with Testing.    

> >>
> >> However, apt should still keep back unupgraded packages, so that if
> >> you issue a dist-upgrade afterwards, it can find them and upgrade
> >> them, correct?
> >
> > It should, but if you used autoremove, those "held back" packages
> > will be removed and forgotten.
>
>
> Ugh, the man page says:
>

>      Packages which you have installed explicitly via install are also
>      never proposed for automatic removal.

That's my understanding, too, but it doesn't apply to anything that's
installed as a dependency. If the main application is dist-upgraded to
a major version higher replacing the app you originally installed,
then those old dependencies probably will show as held-back and
autoremove will remove them since the old app which needed them is no
longer installed. I get this when old kernels get removed by a regular
upgrade (I have my system set up to only retain the previous kernel and
no older ones), then all the old headers, etc are no longer needed,
show as held-back, and autoremove removes them.

> Inkscape must have been installed explicitly.

It could have been installed as a dependency. When I
initially installed my file manager, xfe, a lot (quite a lot,
actually) of other utilities and apps were installed, so xfe could do
its job.

B