On Wednesday 23 September 2026 00:54:12 Thierry de Coulon via tde-users wrote:
I find this thread very interresting as I learn a lot about apt & friends.
But would it not be easier (and faster) to reinstall cleanly?
Thierry
+1
I was thinking this, too, but have hesitated jumping into the discussion.
Also, I would go farther than others have suggested, regarding what repositories to use, what release versions to install, etc. I upgrade from one LTS version to another, and don't bother with the in-between releases. Once your current release becomes oldstable, upgrade to the next LTS stable version.
Unless one is a developer, or has some pressing need to stay absolutely up-to-date with the most bleeding-edge changes, there is little reason to use sid, unstable, experimental, or others.
Besides taking sid out of your sources.list, you might try specifically purging sid packages using apt, apt-get or aptitude, but I am not sure what commands would single out sid packages to remove. Others might help you with that. Also, you might try using these sorts of commands: sudo apt-get -t bookworm install <package names> sudo apt-get -t bookworm purge <package names> (-t refers to the target release)
If this still doesn't clean up those sid packages, then you might be better off starting over with a fresh installation. Since you have mixed bookworm with sid releases, you might have got yourself into an untenable situation. If your system cannot resolve those conflicts, then you could spend days upon days mired in the quicksand of hopelessness.
The manpages are your best friend. man apt man apt-get man aptitude
Also, keep notes of what you are doing. I have text files that track my installations, so that I can avoid making the same mistakes next time. After awhile, I no longer need to refer to my notes, because I have eliminated those problems.
Nowadays, I can go for a year or two without doing an actual system reinstallation; to the point where I half-forget exactly what I did last time. (Another good reason to keep notes on your installations ...) I just keep upgrading from one LTS release to another, usually without ever doing a complete system reinstallation.
Bill