apt-get install wants to remove everything? N900
 

When I try to install Maemo's man-db, which I thought might
let me view man-pages, on my N900, apt-get says it's going
to remove 283 MB of what looks like around 300 programs,
including adobe-flashplayer, busybox, calendar,
clock-ui, dbus, maemo-launcher, microb-engine,
mplayer, opera-mobile, rootsh, upstart, and udev.

What's going on? "apt-get -f install" checks OK.
My sources.list looks OK.
Should I go ahead and try?

No!

(Incidentally, please name some man-page viewers).
TFJ

Re: apt-get install wants to remove everything? N900
 

Yeah go ahead if you like to break your device completely.

Post a bit more info.
I have man-db without problems on my device.

You know about repo mirrors and use them?

Re: apt-get install wants to remove everything? N900
 

I believe I'm using the basic maemo repos. apt-get just says this is what it's going to do. It also lists a bunch of 'osso', 'hildon' and the like programs for deletion.

man-db's apparently in the SDK repo. apt-get wants to remove 380 files.

I sometimes prefer apt-get to the manager apps.
The N900 has seemed vaguely buggy (slow, occasionally freezing) lately.

Re: apt-get install wants to remove everything? N900
 

Basic maemo repos are okay.
But Nokia repos are gone (search here for maemo-repos.com or maemo.muarf.org).

Nevertheless I should read questions here really more thoroughly before answering.
Do NOT install man-db from SDK but install package man-db-n900.

Re: apt-get install wants to remove everything? N900
 

Not sure about the details and I have little time to search my own posting history but I've had the exact same problem with man-db on my N900. At some point, it must have been close to midnight, I decided to remove it, and without looking closely I had apt delete everything it found on it's way.

Re: apt-get install wants to remove everything? N900
 

SOLVED

Correct, the man-db-n900 package, in the extras-devel repo, installed
fine (but with lots of "dangling symlink" warnings, dang it) and seems to work great.
What happened is, when I searched (with apt-cache) for "man page" or such, I had left the SDK repo open in my sources.list file, and grabbed at "man-db" (apparently I missed seeing "man-db-n900").
So this may be a good example of why you should stick to the Extras repo, and be real cautious with the others; this problem was pretty obvious, but others might not be.

Re: apt-get install wants to remove everything? N900
 

Perhaps you could put the 'Solved' tag to the title thread as well?

Re: apt-get install wants to remove everything? N900
 

And please, for forms sake, let us note that apt-get IS NOT A RECOMMENDED way to install things on the n900.

It can bite you HARD, unless you know wots wot and are attentive.

Re: apt-get install wants to remove everything? N900
 

???
I do install almost everhthing via console ...

Agreed.

But having HAM deciding in the background is not an option either ( for me).

Re: apt-get install wants to remove everything? N900
 

Yes, but that after-all is YOU :-)

I believe my advice is that recommended for most users of the n900.