Synaptic reports held package conflicts then works on second try

[AVLinux]

Hi,

Using MX 19.2 I've noticed an odd behaviour in Synaptic. I am currently removing a lot of packages at a time and when I select a related group of packages to remove in Synaptic, (as an example removing the entire Libreoffice suite) I select the packages, mark them for 'Complete Removal' then hit the 'Apply' button and Synaptic will throw me an error and complain that I have held packages and will fail to remove them... I thought OK, my bad.. I must have selected a wrong package when it happened the first few times but then it happened again even removing small lots of packages (ie compton) and I hit the 'Apply' button a second time and then it worked as expected..

So to summarize Synaptic is reporting Package conflicts that aren't actually happening because hitting Apply the second time allows things to proceed as normal. For me this is happening more often than not and only appears when removing Packages (not installing). This also happens with Autoremove, if I select a large number of packages that are no longer needed all at once Synaptic will refuse to carry out the removal and once again complain about Held package conflicts but if I open a Root Terminal and 'apt-get autoremove' there are no problems or errors in the terminal.

Has anyone else noted this?

[Stevo]

That's why the terminal is still the undisputed champion!

If you uninstall the uno packages, that should take almost all of LO with it, though--it's the critical bottom block in the Jenga stack.

[AVLinux]

That's why the terminal is still the undisputed champion!

If you uninstall the uno packages, that should take almost all of LO with it, though--it's the critical bottom block in the Jenga stack.

Hi Stevo,

You are a packaging legend!! *bows low..."I'm not worthy"

I agree and normally would use the terminal for all of this but I'm new to MX and don't know the package names for a lot of the extras in MX that I don't use and wanted to uninstall so I had to seek and destroy with Synaptic.. Is it possible some things are a bit sticky to remove from the overlap between Debian and MX packages? You guys have a lot of special patched stuff in there!

[Stevo]

It seems more of a bug with Synaptic--I also get it at times. MX Package installer also has a search function and an uninstaller, though I don't think it can just show installed packages like Synaptic can.

Some of our packages fix Debian bugs that they never have gotten around to addressing, or add something they don't. You've probably forgotten more about ffmpeg than I ever learned, but we build our versions with nvenc support by adding nv-codec-headers to the build-depends after porting that over from deb-multimedia (dmo).

[JayM]

It seems more of a bug with Synaptic--I also get it at times. MX Package installer also has a search function and an uninstaller, though I don't think it can just show installed packages like Synaptic can.

Sure it can, unless I'm misunderstanding what you're saying. Not on the Popular Applications tab though, but on all the other tabs you can set it to show installed apps.

I use MXPI for everything. I only open Synaptic when I want to read the long descriptions of packages, then I close Synaptic and go back to MXPI to install them. It lets me also install the recommends if there are any. That can probably be done in a setting in Synaptic too but I haven't explored its menus that much.

[Stevo]

Well, that shows I use the command line too much, if that's even possible. It is great that MXPI can show only installed packages, then.

Synaptic also has the setting to install recommended packages.

[AVLinux]

Hmmm,

That's interesting about ffmpeg, the attention to detail here is unreal!

To be honest I'm still soaking in all the great 'MX' tools and hadn't really gotten into MXPI in great detail, I'll give it a whirl, thanks for the replies!

[AVLinux]

Hi,

I think this is worth bringing up again.. I have encountered this exact bug on 3 systems now.. my intial pure MX 64bit install, a 32-bit pure Debian system crossgraded to MX and a 32bit system installed fresh from the 32bit minimum install 19.2 Respin. In all cases Synaptic often does not carry out what its asked to do when you want to remove several packages at once, the first time you click 'Apply' it will complain you have package conflicts and have held Packages blah blah and then when Apply is clicked a second time it works without a hitch..

I know you can use the command line and I know you can use MXPI but I have probably probed the innards of MX far more than most casual users and as someone who is migrating from Debian and has been a Synaptic user since day one in my Linux pursuits I find this bug to be very offputting. If you want MXPI to be the default package manager than perhaps Synaptic should either be looked into or omitted from the basic install.

Secondly on all systems I have installed the mechanism for gtk2 QT5 theming in /etc/X11/Xsession.d/56xfce4-qtconfig does not work with any custom dark themes I install, also if and when it does work it only works with some QT5 applications. For example Avidemux Video Editor doesn't reflect the gtk2 theme with the default MX configuration, and it normally does not require any special settings from the User to do so. The only way I can reliably get gtk2 theming in QT5 across all expected applications is the 'old' qt5ct/qt5-style-plugins way and this works perfectly so I don't think it has anything to do with the custom themes.

MX Linux is SO head and shoulders above pretty much above any Distro out there for having things pre-thought out and configured for the User and I am a superduper-fan, but these 2 issues may seem peripheral or go unnoticed by many people but on every system I've prepared and have been working in for AVL-MXE development I have encountered them pretty much right off the bat..

[dolphin_oracle]

Hi,

I think this is worth bringing up again.. I have encountered this exact bug on 3 systems now.. my intial pure MX 64bit install, a 32-bit pure Debian system crossgraded to MX and a 32bit system installed fresh from the 32bit minimum install 19.2 Respin. In all cases Synaptic often does not carry out what its asked to do when you want to remove several packages at once, the first time you click 'Apply' it will complain you have package conflicts and have held Packages blah blah and then when Apply is clicked a second time it works without a hitch..

I know you can use the command line and I know you can use MXPI but I have probably probed the innards of MX far more than most casual users and as someone who is migrating from Debian and has been a Synaptic user since day one in my Linux pursuits I find this bug to be very offputting. If you want MXPI to be the default package manager than perhaps Synaptic should either be looked into or omitted from the basic install.

Secondly on all systems I have installed the mechanism for gtk2 QT5 theming in /etc/X11/Xsession.d/56xfce4-qtconfig does not work with any custom dark themes I install, also if and when it does work it only works with some QT5 applications. For example Avidemux Video Editor doesn't reflect the gtk2 theme with the default MX configuration, and it normally does not require any special settings from the User to do so. The only way I can reliably get gtk2 theming in QT5 across all expected applications is the 'old' qt5ct/qt5-style-plugins way and this works perfectly so I don't think it has anything to do with the custom themes.

MX Linux is SO head and shoulders above pretty much above any Distro out there for having things pre-thought out and configured for the User and I am a superduper-fan, but these 2 issues may seem peripheral or go unnoticed by many people but on every system I've prepared and have been working in for AVL-MXE development I have encountered them pretty much right off the bat..

as for the Qt gtk2 theme plugin...yes the support for that plugin is waning these days. the next major release of MX will probably need to do something different (and I'm not looking forward to it, because it will likely mean another theme chooser. As far as your custom dark themes, for the gtk2 plugin to work, the themes do need gtk2 theme parts. many themes these days are gtk3 only (and why we don't include them by default in MX).