That won't work. First of all the command would be (if it would work, which it won't):
Code: Select all
# aptitude unmarkauto gnome-desktop-environment
(I don't know this sudo of which you speak
, but it would have to be run as root)
In order to use unmarkauto you would have to flag every package that is a dependency of gnome-desktop-environment. Furthermore you'd have an additional problem since gnome-desktop-environment is a hard dependency of gnome (assuming the gnome package was installed).
You basically have 2 fairly simple solutions. The one that I would use myself (because overall I like metapackages and the way they work and like to preserve the autoremoval aspects) is:
1) Install the equivs package
2) To get a clue of what the program does and how
a) Read the README.Debian file and look at the examples in the examples subdirectory of /usr/share/doc/equivs/
b) read the man pages for
equivs-control and
equivs-build
The documentation is rather short, so it shouldn't take you long.
3) Create a directory. I'll assume ~/source/equivs/fakeempathy
Code: Select all
mkdir -p ~/source/equivs/fakeempathy
4) Change to that directory and create the template
Code: Select all
cd ~/source/equivs/fakeempathy
equivs-control fakeempathy
This will create a file within that directory named fakeempathy. Edit that file with the text editor of your choice, Change (uncomment as needed) the following lines:
Code: Select all
Package: fakeempathy
Depends: pidgin
Provides: empathy
Replaces: empathy
Architecture: all
Description: Replace empathy with pidgin
That's all. You can change the Description if you want, and you can probably leave out the Depends: line, in which case you won't force an install of pidgin, but still allow for empathy's removal.
5) Create the deb package
That will create a deb package within the current directory.
6) Install the deb package using either gdebi or dpkg
That should do the trick (although I haven't specifically tested this). Method 2, on the other hand, is quicker and simpler - but you'll lose autoremoval for a lot of the packages and defeat the benefits of having metapackages in the first place:
1)
Code: Select all
# apt-get remove empathy
# aptitude keep-all
Done
Just one further note - you can use equivs to create your own metapackages if you want.
