Muon wants to install over 300 packages I even don't have installed

[Goeroeboeroe]

Hi,
This morning Muon showed an alert there are updates. Happens all the time. Only this time it wants to install 325 packages, 1,6 GB.
4 applications, rest system packages. I don't even have those apps or system-packages installed. Among them are lots of fonts, latex with a lot of related packages, and lots of gnome.
If I look in Synaptic, there are only three packages to update: linux-generic, linux-headers-generic and linux-image-generic. Together less then 100 kB. Those three packages are also in Muon updater.
I didn't install all this, but I don't know how to solve this.
Any help appreciated.

[NickStone]

Are you using the 15.04 version (which is currently under development)? Or have you installed plasma5 from a ppa?

[Goeroeboeroe]

No, I'm using 14.04 Trusty. No plasma5.
The only ppa's I've added are Opera en Google Chrome. I've added those years ago. And a few months ago I've added the ppa for fresh-player.

[NickStone]

Judging by the size of the download and the number of packages it wants to download it sounds like it is wanting to perform a system upgrade. Do you know of any options in Muon that might allow it to carry out a full system upgrade? It maybe that under Muon it has the option selected to tell you when a new version is available and as 14.10 is a newer version to yours which is available then that is why it is telling you there are so many packages to upgrade.

[claydoh]

No, it is not trying to perform a system upgrade. Muon does not have this functionality in itself. Also, there would be far, far more packages involved, including new ones, upgraded one, and one to be removed, and will involve thousands, not hundreds, of packages. 300 plus is a bit more than a new KDE release or something along those lines.

Is it wanting to install or upgrade these packages?
If you can please paste the output of
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade so we can see what it trying to do, it would help us figure it out/

[Goeroeboeroe]

I checked every setting in all four muon-programs I have. Nothing about a system-upgrade. It's also not upgrading/updating, it wants to install completely new packages I've never installed before. Apart from the about 350 system packages it want to install Brasero, Fontforge and GNU Emacs. The fourth application I even don't know the name in English. Something like imageviewer, but it's not Gwenview. All four were never installed before.

Here's the output from sudo apt-get:

~/>sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
[sudo] password for peter: 
Pakketlijsten worden ingelezen... Klaar
Boom van vereisten wordt opgebouwd       
De status informatie wordt gelezen... Klaar
Opwaardering wordt doorgerekend... Klaar
De volgende NIEUWE pakketten zullen geïnstalleerd worden:                                                       
  attr auctex autotrace binfmt-support brasero brasero-cdrkit brasero-common
  btrfs-tools catdvi chktex cl-asdf cl-swank clisp clisp-dev clisp-doc
  cm-super cm-super-minimal common-lisp-controller darcs db5.3-util dblatex
  debiandoc-sgml debiandoc-sgml-doc doc-base docbook docbook-defguide
  docbook-dsssl docbook-dsssl-doc docbook-mathml docbook-utils dot2tex
  dvdauthor dvidvi dvipng emacs24 emacs24-bin-common emacs24-common
  emacs24-common-non-dfsg emacs24-el emacsen-common eog evince evince-common
  fdutils feynmf fontforge fontforge-common fontforge-doc fontforge-extras
  fonts-arphic-bkai00mp fonts-arphic-bsmi00lp fonts-arphic-gbsn00lp
  fonts-arphic-gkai00mp fonts-cabin fonts-comfortaa fonts-font-awesome
  fonts-freefont-otf fonts-gfs-artemisia fonts-gfs-baskerville
  fonts-gfs-complutum fonts-gfs-didot fonts-gfs-neohellenic fonts-gfs-olga
  fonts-gfs-porson fonts-gfs-solomos fonts-hosny-amiri fonts-inconsolata
  fonts-ipaexfont-gothic fonts-ipaexfont-mincho fonts-ipafont-gothic
  fonts-ipafont-mincho fonts-junicode fonts-lato fonts-linuxlibertine
  fonts-lmodern fonts-lobster fonts-lobstertwo fonts-oflb-asana-math
  fonts-stix fonts-texgyre fragmaster gir1.2-clutter-1.0
  gir1.2-clutter-gst-2.0 gir1.2-cogl-1.0 gir1.2-coglpango-1.0
  gir1.2-evince-3.0 gir1.2-gst-plugins-base-1.0 gir1.2-gstreamer-1.0
  gir1.2-gtkclutter-1.0 gir1.2-gtksource-3.0 gir1.2-json-1.0
  gnome-desktop3-data gnome-sushi graphviz graphviz-doc groff
  gstreamer1.0-fluendo-mp3 hwdata jadetex jfsutils kernel-package
  ko.tex-extra-hlfont lacheck latex-beamer latex-cjk-all latex-cjk-chinese
  latex-cjk-chinese-arphic-bkai00mp latex-cjk-chinese-arphic-bsmi00lp
  latex-cjk-chinese-arphic-gbsn00lp latex-cjk-chinese-arphic-gkai00mp
  latex-cjk-common latex-cjk-japanese latex-cjk-japanese-wadalab
  latex-cjk-korean latex-cjk-thai latex-fonts-sipa-arundina latex-sanskrit
  latex-xcolor latexdiff latexmk libautotrace3 libbrasero-media3-1 libburn4
  libcdt5 libcgraph6 libcommon-sense-perl libconfig-inifiles-perl
  libconvert-asn1-perl libdw1 libevdocument3-4 libevview3-3 libexempi3
  libffcall1 libfile-which-perl libfontforge1 libframe6 libgail-3-0 libgdraw4
  libgeis1 libgjs0e libgnome-desktop-3-7 libgrail6 libgrip0 libgssapi-perl
  libgssglue1 libgtksourceview-3.0-1 libgtksourceview-3.0-common libgvc6
  libgvpr2 libgxps2 libintl-perl libintl-xs-perl libisofs6 libjson-perl
  libjson-xs-perl libjte1 libkpathsea6 libmozjs-24-0 libncurses5-dev
  libnet-ldap-perl liboil0.3 libopagent1 libosp5 libostyle1c2 libpathplan4
  libplot2c2 libpotrace0 libpstoedit0c2a libptexenc1 libpython-dbg
  libpython2.7-dbg libroman-perl libserf-1-1 libsgmls-perl libsp1c2 libspiro0
  libsvn-perl libsvn1 libt1-5 libtcltk-ruby libtcltk-ruby1.9.1
  libtext-format-perl libtext-unidecode-perl libtinfo-dev libtirpc1
  libuninameslist0 libunity-protocol-private0 libunity-scopes-json-def-desktop
  libunity9 libuuid-perl libxml-libxml-perl libxml-namespacesupport-perl
  libxml-parser-perl libxml-sax-base-perl libxml-sax-expat-perl
  libxml-sax-perl libyaml-tiny-perl libzeitgeist-1.0-1 linux-headers-3.13.0-44
  linux-headers-3.13.0-44-generic linux-image-3.13.0-44-generic
  linux-image-extra-3.13.0-44-generic linux-lts-utopic-tools-3.16.0-29
  linux-lts-utopic-tools-common linux-source-3.13.0
  linux-tools-3.16.0-29-generic linux-tools-virtual-lts-utopic linuxdoc-tools
  linuxdoc-tools-info linuxdoc-tools-latex linuxdoc-tools-text lmodern luatex
  lynx mcelog mdadm nautilus nautilus-data ncurses-doc openjade opensp
  oprofile oprofile-gui perl-tk pfb2t1c2pfb pgf potrace preview-latex-style
  prosper ps2eps psgml pstoedit psutils purifyeps python-dbg python-fontforge
  python-gdbm python-gdbm-dbg python-pygments python-pyparsing
  python-subversion python-subversion-dbg python-tk-dbg python2.7-dbg quota
  realpath reiserfsprogs rpcbind ruby-svn sbcl sbcl-doc sbcl-source
  session-migration sgmls-doc sgmlspl slime sp squashfs-tools subversion
  subversion-tools svn2cl swath tex-common tex-gyre texinfo
  texinfo-doc-nonfree texlive texlive-base texlive-bibtex-extra
  texlive-binaries texlive-extra-utils texlive-font-utils texlive-fonts-extra
  texlive-fonts-extra-doc texlive-fonts-recommended
  texlive-fonts-recommended-doc texlive-generic-recommended
  texlive-lang-african texlive-lang-all texlive-lang-arabic texlive-lang-cjk
  texlive-lang-cyrillic texlive-lang-czechslovak texlive-lang-english
  texlive-lang-european texlive-lang-french texlive-lang-german
  texlive-lang-greek texlive-lang-indic texlive-lang-italian
  texlive-lang-other texlive-lang-polish texlive-lang-portuguese
  texlive-lang-spanish texlive-latex-base texlive-latex-base-doc
  texlive-latex-extra texlive-latex-extra-doc texlive-latex-recommended
  texlive-latex-recommended-doc texlive-luatex texlive-math-extra
  texlive-metapost texlive-metapost-doc texlive-pictures texlive-pictures-doc
  texlive-pstricks texlive-pstricks-doc texlive-xetex tipa ttf-adf-accanthis
  ttf-adf-gillius ttf-bitstream-vera w3-dtd-mathml w3c-dtd-xhtml xfsdump
  xfsprogs xindy xindy-rules xmltex xmlto
De volgende pakketten zullen opgewaardeerd worden:
  linux-generic linux-headers-generic linux-image-generic
3 pakketten opgewaardeerd, 321 pakketten nieuw geïnstalleerd, 0 te verwijderen en 0 niet opgewaardeerd.
Er moeten 1756 MB aan archieven opgehaald worden.
Door deze operatie zal er 3498 MB extra schijfruimte gebruikt worden.
Wilt u doorgaan? [J/n] n
Afbreken.

The last three packages linux-generic etc. are the three packages Synaptic also wants to upgrade, but not all the other packages.

Two translations, because I gues you don't read Dutch:
De volgende NIEUWE pakketten zullen geïnstalleerd worden -> The following NEW packages will be installed.
3 pakketten opgewaardeerd, 321 pakketten nieuw geïnstalleerd, 0 te verwijderen en 0 niet opgewaardeerd. -> 3 packages upgraded. 321 packages new installed. 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

[claydoh]

All I can see is that something is trying to pull in a LOT of text processing and font stuff, among other things ??

[Goeroeboeroe]

Yes, I thougt so too. But I didn't change any setting, didn't install new packages the last few weeks, only the usual daily updates for 3-6 packages. Apart from these regular updates I only updated extensions inside of Firefox, but I don't think that can have anything to do with it.
Yesterday everything was normal, this just started this morning.
I suppose there's no file somewhere belonging to muon I can remove, so it can have a fresh look?

[lnx64]

This isn't so much as Muon, as it is just something queued up for apt-get to install, as if something else installed with a lot of dependencies.

[Goeroeboeroe]

That made me think about the history Muon keeps. Yesterday it only updated fresplayer-plugin. I've removed it and rebooted (maybe not necessarily, but I'm no Linux expert ). Problem still exists, so I reinstalled freshplayer-plugin.
Yesterday morning it was okay, but to be sure I looked what was updated last week: nothing strange, just a few updates every day.

[Goeroeboeroe]

I've marked this trhead as solved, but actually it's some kind of solved.
I asked about the updates/installs because I thought Muon had lost it's mind. But it appeared it was not something from Muon. sudo apt-get tried the same. When i asked Synaptic to update the three linux-packages, it insisted also to install all those new packages.
So it had nothing to do with Muon going wild.
I decided to install the whole thing, and updating works again like it should.
I guess I'll never know what caused this. It looks like something needed all those packages, but I've no idea what's the reason, because I didn't install nothing new for weeks. Or maybe it was a damaged file/database/... (just guessing), or something like that.
Anyway things work again normal and I can even write Chinese in Latex now!
Thanks for the help.

[GreyGeek]

Sometimes, selecting a GTK+ App that is a core component of Gnome, or requires Gnome, results in the installation of Gnome, rather than just the compatibility libraries.

[Goeroeboeroe]

Do you mean when I start the GTK+ App, it may ask for additional packages? I thought when installing the app it's installing everything that's needed.
That's the mystery for me. Monday updating was normal, tuesday it wanted to install all those packages. And I haven't installed something new for weeks, only updates.
But when an app can trigger for updates when I use it, that's possible. I have some gnome mediaplayers and gimp, and it's possible I've done monday something with (one of) those programs I didn't do before.

[lnx64]

This is why I'm a firm believer of self contained programs, of which has been discussed a few times in the BSD world from what I understand.. Otherwise it's the Windows equivalent of DLL hell.

[GreyGeek]

Do you mean when I start the GTK+ App, it may ask for additional packages? I thought when installing the app it's installing everything that's needed.
...

No, if you have already installed the GTK+ app then all the needed libraries and additional files have been installed. It's when you select a GTK+ package which requires a library related to the Gnome desktop itself, and that library requires other GTK+ libraries, etc..., until you are, in effect, installing Gnome.

It's not "DLL Hell". That maledy is when you install an app which uses library a, but library a requires a certain version of library b, which is different from the version of library b which is already installed. Replaceing library b(existing) with b(proposed) may trigger the replacement of library c(existing) with c(proposed) but c(existing) requires library a(existing), hence a conflict.

Once, when I was using KNOPPIX, IIRC, I decided to install a particular program. It turns out that the program I wanted to install was written for the next release of KDE 3.y. I didn't pay attention and when I did notice that dozens of packages were being installed it was too late to stop the process without destroying my KDE installation. I let it proceed. When it was done I logged out and back in and had a brand new KDE 3.y. I was elated. About a week later I was installing another app and this time I noticed that it was going to revert more than 100 files to the KDE 3.x version. I let it run, feeling smug and having faith in RPM. When I logged out I couldn't log back in. Since then I ALWAYS watch carefully how many apps are being co-installed when I install a selected app.

While this was a serious problem on early versions of RPM (Redhat Program Manager), I don't that those problems occur very often today on RPM based distros. I've been using a deb based distro since Kubuntu 9.04 and I've yet to encounter anything even remotely similar to DLL hell.