How to undo apt autoremove

Yasha Karant

10/19/23, 2:37 PM

As the GUI Software Updater is not working, I have been doing via a terminal window within the MATE GUI sudo apt update followed by sudo apt upgrade . A new kernel and kernel "support" packages were installed. This time, when the upgrade requested to clean up a number of supposedly unneeded packages, my Xwindows system failed. From /var/log/apt/history.log I found:

Commandline: apt autoremove
Requested-By: ykarant (1000)
Remove: libnvidia-common-390:amd64 (390.154-0ubuntu0.22.04.1), libnvidia-fbc1-3
90:amd64 (390.154-0ubuntu0.22.04.1), linux-image-5.15.0-48-generic:amd64 (5.15.
0-48.54), libnvidia-gl-390:amd64 (390.154-0ubuntu0.22.04.1), nvidia-compute-uti
ls-390:amd64 (390.154-0ubuntu0.22.04.1), libnvidia-encode-390:amd64 (390.154-0u
buntu0.22.04.1), nvidia-utils-390:amd64 (390.154-0ubuntu0.22.04.1), xserver-xor
g-video-nvidia-390:amd64 (390.154-0ubuntu0.22.04.1), libnvidia-ifr1-390:amd64 (
390.154-0ubuntu0.22.04.1), linux-signatures-nvidia-5.15.0-48-generic:amd64 (5.1
5.0-48.54), linux-modules-nvidia-390-5.15.0-48-generic:amd64 (5.15.0-48.54), li
nux-headers-5.15.0-48-generic:amd64 (5.15.0-48.54), libnvidia-decode-390:amd64 
(390.154-0ubuntu0.22.04.1), linux-modules-5.15.0-48-generic:amd64 (5.15.0-48.54
), fonts-symbola:amd64 (2.60-1.1), task-desktop:amd64 (3.68ubuntu2), screen-res
olution-extra:amd64 (0.18.2), nvidia-settings:amd64 (510.47.03-0ubuntu1), linux
-modules-extra-5.15.0-48-generic:amd64 (5.15.0-48.54), gstreamer1.0-vaapi:amd64 (1.20.1-1ubuntu1), libnvidia-cfg1-390:amd64 (390.154-0ubuntu0.22.04.1), linux-headers-5.15.0-48:amd64 (5.15.0-48.54), linux-objects-nvidia-390-5.15.0-48-generic:amd64 (5.15.0-48.54)
End-Date: 2022-10-18  23:37:26

Is there a mechanism to "reinstall" the above other than hand entering each package into apt install? I have read this question about undoing apt autoremove.

0 + 8

upgrade

package-management

apt

nvidia

kernel

Esther

10/19/23, 2:44 PM

looks like pretty much your nvidia driver and all of its dependencies were removed. You can try just reinstalling nvidia-driver-390 and reboot (no autoremove, no cleaning unneeded packages) and see if it works. And in the future *look at which packages it wants to remove*, and don't allow it to remove packages you want.

David

10/19/23, 2:44 PM

Did you not ask almost the exact same question earlier today?

David

10/19/23, 2:45 PM

Any way deleted is deleted you would need to reinstall one at a time but not sure that will work.

David

10/19/23, 2:47 PM

From your question "As the GUI Software Updater is not working" what does this mean?

Artur Meinild

10/19/23, 3:09 PM

Apt itself does not have an "undo" or history feature. But [nala does](https://askubuntu.com/a/1427678/1066942), which is a more modern front-end to apt. It should be pointed out that nala is still in beta stage.

Yasha Karant

10/19/23, 9:11 PM

Esther, When I manually re-installed everything, used the GUI widget shutdown (what appears to be a USA style light switch as rendered to me), and then waited until the last stopping process-name on the scrolling text screen simply hung (n less than k seconds, but n never increased after minutes), held down the power button for a hard power off, power on, wait for the ext4 journal to "rebuild", eventually everything worked. (Separate question: the Ubuntu fresh install defaults to ext4 -- is there any way other than manual formatting during the install to force XFS instead of ext4?)

Yasha Karant

10/19/23, 9:13 PM

Artur Meinild, will nala be a default or an option in Ubuntu LTS? Once nala goes to production status, will it interoperate with apt and the GUI Software Updater?

Yasha Karant

10/19/23, 9:16 PM

David, the GUI Software Updater as well as the GUI Software and Updates Configuration fail to work on my machine although I have Python 3 installed from Ubuntu. At some point, in some update from some application, the "data structure" file/s used by these got "munged". I will attempt to copy working versions plus such files from another 22.04 machine.

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