"SOLVED" Unable to unmark packages for upgrade

[JBoman]

I decided to do a standard upgrade today and selected to mark all upgrades in Synaptic package manager. Once everything reloaded synaptic showed packages to be installed and packages to be upgraded as normal but a new package was to be installed that I do not want installed so I cancelled the upgrade and located the package that was to be installed and attempted to unmark it for installation but found the options to unmark the packaged was greyed out as well as the options to remove or completely remove the package. On further investigation I found other packages that those options were also greyed out. In all my years as a Linux and Debian based system user I have never been denied as the root user the ability to unmark a package for installation or the ability to remove any package from the system that I desired to remove even if it was an critical component of the system that would crash the works. I need to know if this is a bug in my system or something new that has been implemented in MX. Any clarification is most appreciated as it's a game changer for me as-is. Thank You, JBoman

Quick System Info>

Code: Select all

System:    Host: Dotty Kernel: 4.15.0-1-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 6.3.0 
           Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 Distro: MX-18.3_x64 Continuum March 14  2018 
           base: Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) 
Machine:   Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: M2N68-AM Plus v: Rev X.0x serial: <filter> 
           BIOS: American Megatrends v: 1804 date: 08/23/2010 
CPU:       Topology: Dual Core model: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ bits: 64 type: MCP arch: K8 rev.F+ 
           rev: 2 L2 cache: 1024 KiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 svm bogomips: 9241 
           Speed: 2311 MHz min/max: N/A Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2311 2: 2311 
Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA C61 [GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a] vendor: ASUSTeK driver: nvidia 
           v: 304.137 bus ID: 00:0d.0 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: nvidia resolution: 1440x900~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a/integrated/SSE2 v: 2.1.2 NVIDIA 304.137 
           direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: NVIDIA MCP61 High Definition Audio vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel 
           v: kernel bus ID: 00:05.0 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.15.0-1-amd64 
Network:   Device-1: NVIDIA MCP61 Ethernet vendor: ASUSTeK M4N68T series type: network bridge 
           driver: forcedeth v: kernel port: e480 bus ID: 00:07.0 
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Ralink RT2760 Wireless 802.11n 1T/2R driver: rt2800pci v: 2.3.0 port: d000 
           bus ID: 01:06.0 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 298.09 GiB used: 72.14 GiB (24.2%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD3200AAJS-65B4A0 size: 298.09 GiB 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 39.12 GiB used: 16.95 GiB (43.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda9 
           ID-2: /home size: 57.99 GiB used: 54.93 GiB (94.7%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 4.00 GiB used: 267.5 MiB (6.5%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda3 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 53.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:     No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/antix.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
           1: deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stretch-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stretch main contrib non-free
           2: deb http://security.debian.org/ stretch/updates main contrib non-free
           3: deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stretch non-free contrib main
           4: deb http://www.deb-multimedia.org/ stretch non-free main
           5: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ stretch-backports main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
           1: deb https://mirror.us.oneandone.net/linux/distributions/mx/packages/mx/repo/ stretch main non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/various.list 
           1: deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/ stretch contrib
Info:      Processes: 194 Uptime: 23h 22m Memory: 3.61 GiB used: 697.4 MiB (18.9%) 
           Init: SysVinit runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 6.3.0 Shell: bash v: 4.4.12 inxi: 3.0.36 

[JayM]

Search the forum for how to pin packages in Synaptic, or just explore Synaptic's menus and you'll find it. After pinning yours at the current version you'll need to reload the available packages and check for upgrades again. Your package now shouldn't be listed among the upgrades.

Also you have Debian Backports permanently enabled. This could break your system. If you need packages from there, MX Package Installer is your friend. You also shouldn't have added the VirtualBox repo. VB is available in MX's own repositories including 6.1.10 in the MX Test Repo if you want a newer version for some reason.

[JBoman]

Thank you, the suggestions and recommendations to insure stability in my system are appreciated, however, I still need to know why the package control options are greyed out in synaptic.

[seaken64]

You said you used Synaptic to mark for upgrades. Perhaps that package is a dependency for a package being updated?

[JBoman]

I had considered backports as a possible reason for the disabled options so I disabled backports, reloaded package list, and marked upgrades again only to find the same package trying to install and the same greyed out options. The persistent package trying to install I first noticed that I didn't want was youtube-dl.

[JBoman]

That is possible seaken64, I will check it out, thanks for the suggestion.

[Stevo]

Since SMPlayer now requires youtube-dl for its Youtube playback feature, I made it a dependency of that program. Synaptic should let you know it's removing SMPlayer if you have both installed, like apt on the command line:

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$ sudo apt remove youtube-dl
[sudo] password for steve: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libigdgmm5 liblept5 libllvm9 libllvm9:i386 libtesseract4 libvapoursynth libvapoursynth-script0
  libzimg2 mpv vapoursynth-python3 xsel
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  smplayer smplayer-l10n smplayer-themes youtube-dl
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 4 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 25.9 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n

[jeffreyC]

Search the forum for how to pin packages in Synaptic, or just explore Synaptic's menus and you'll find it. After pinning yours at the current version you'll need to reload the available packages and check for upgrades again. Your package now shouldn't be listed among the upgrades.

Also you have Debian Backports permanently enabled. This could break your system.

As long as you do not change the MX Linux default repo priorities that will not happen, you need to force version to install or upgrade anything from backports.
The test repo or virtual box repo is a different matter.

[JayM]

Or leaving the Debian Backports repo enabled while doing updates may have broken something, possibly Synaptic. Many of MX's packages and libraries are actually newer or different than the ones in Debian including their backports and updating everything available in Backports may have overwritten things such as system files and libraries with different versions. See Don't Break Debian and How To Break Your System in my signature.

Never mind, per jeffreyC's post above.

[JBoman]

Yes was a dependency issue. Thanks for all the help and thanks Stevo for the verification of why. Backports and VB are disabled now and thanks for that as I never intended to have left backports enabled and and had not paid any attention to repos until this happened. Great Community, Thanks again, Jerry