The packages to be newly installed are the same as the packages that should be autoremoved!

Question

I am noticing a very peculiar thing just after shifting to Debian-based distros.

root@Am-I-Helpful:~# uname -a
Linux Am-I-Helpful 4.3.0-kali1-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.3.3-5kali4
(2016-01-13) x86_64 GNU/Linux

The output of apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade is :

root@Am-I-Helpful:~# apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade
Hit:1 http://heanet.dl.sourceforge.net/project/ubuntuzilla/mozilla/apt all InRelease
Hit:2 http://kali.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/kali sana InRelease                   
Hit:3 http://kali.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/kali-security sana/updates InRelease
Reading package lists... Done
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libavcodec56 libavformat56 libavresample2 libavutil54 libdvbpsi9
  libfreerdp-rail1.1 libpostproc52 libswscale3 libvncclient0 libvpx1
  libx264-142
Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libavcodec56 libavformat56 libavresample2 libavutil54 libdvbpsi9
  libfreerdp-rail1.1 libpostproc52 libswscale3 libvncclient0 libvpx1
  libx264-142
The following packages have been kept back:
  libarchive13 vlc vlc-nox vlc-plugin-notify vlc-plugin-samba
0 upgraded, 11 newly installed, 0 to remove and 5 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/5,605 kB of archives.
After this operation, 14.8 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n
Abort.

The surprising thing is :

It says

The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libavcodec56 libavformat56 libavresample2 libavutil54 libdvbpsi9
  libfreerdp-rail1.1 libpostproc52 libswscale3 libvncclient0 libvpx1
  libx264-142
Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.

On the other end, at the very next line it also states

The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libavcodec56 libavformat56 libavresample2 libavutil54 libdvbpsi9
  libfreerdp-rail1.1 libpostproc52 libswscale3 libvncclient0 libvpx1
  libx264-142

These are the same list of packages which are asked to be removed! I am not getting this as to how it is coming into picture.

The content of my /etc/apt/sources.list is :

# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 2016.1 _Kali-rolling_ - Official Snapshot amd64 LIVE/INSTALL Binary 20160120-18:14]/ kali-rolling contrib main non-free  
#deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 2016.1 _Kali-rolling_ - Official Snapshot amd64 LIVE/INSTALL Binary 20160120-18:14]/ kali-rolling contrib main non-free  
#deb http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/ubuntuzilla/mozilla/apt all main  
#deb http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/ubuntuzilla/mozilla/apt all main
deb http://http.kali.org/kali sana main non-free contrib
deb http://security.kali.org/kali-security/ sana/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/ubuntuzilla/mozilla/apt all main

Could someone please clarify as to what is happening here? How to solve this ambiguous case?

@SivaPrasath - I don't see how the `flagged as duplicate of question` answers my question! Would you please explain? Just for everybody's information, I am having a good understanding of basic Linux, and Kali in general. — Am_I_Helpful, Aug 03 '18 at 05:50
You are mixing packages from Kali and the Ubuntuzilla repository. Looks like the Ubuntuzilla repository is intended for Ubuntu, not for Kali, and Ubuntuzilla's latest release was back in 2011, so it is unlikely to match any current version of Ubuntu or Kali. You should know better than to mix random distributions, or be prepared to deal with ensuing library version conflicts. — telcoM, Aug 03 '18 at 11:12
@telcoM - I agree with your point here, but it was dated 2016. Actually, in the past I read somewhere that you can give this ubuntuzilla a try, and so I had made the changes. Still, I remember correctly that I removed the unofficial repositories, and left only the Official Kali ones. Thanks for your comment! — Am_I_Helpful, Aug 03 '18 at 11:20

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 03 '18 at 08:07

0

There is no ambiguity.

Apt is warning you that you could remove those packages if you want. If you use apt autoremove, they will be removed.

On the other side, until you do not remove them, they will be updated regularly.

answered Aug 03 '18 at 08:07

andcoz

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Thanks for the answer andcoz. If I remember clearly, I did remove them. And, it again installed these packages. This kept on happening forever in a loop! Please notice carefully that the option is not `update or remove`, and rather `remove and install` the same thing -- in a loop. – Am_I_Helpful Aug 03 '18 at 08:18

The packages to be newly installed are the same as the packages that should be autoremoved!

1 Answers1