Michael C. wrote:

>> What happened when you say it "bombed" ? The error messages would be
>> very useful in locating the problem.
>
> That is the command that apt suggests to fix a borked apt-get.

apt-get should not bomb in the first place.

>
> Okay, I ran
>
> sudo dpkg --purge --remove-depends kontact kontact-plugins \
> kdeaddons kdepim

My man page does not say anything about the --remove-depends option. I
assume you are trying to purge (remove all config files for these 4
packages).

>
> followed by
>
> $ sudo apt-get -f install

I do not understand. What are you trying to install ?

The usual syntax is apt-get install <packagename>

See the man page :

install
install is followed by one or more packages desired for
installation. Each package is a package name, not a fully qualified
filename (for instance, in a Debian GNU/Linux system,
libc6 would be the argument provided, not libc6_1.9.6-2.deb) All
packages required by the package(s) specified for
installation will also be retrieved and installed.

....


If no package matches the given expression and the expression
contains one of '.', '?' or '*' then it is assumed to be a
POSIX regular expression, and it is applied to all package
names in the database. Any matches are then installed (or re-
moved). Note that matching is done by substring so 'lo.*'
matches 'how-lo' and 'lowest'. If this is undesired, anchor the
regular expression with a '^' or '$' character, or create a
more specific regular expression.


For instance if you are trying to install kdeaddons :

apt-get install kdeaddons

This will check the dependencies and the download and install all required
packages.

>
> How do I tell apt to forget about adding those packages? So apt
> is usable again.
>

If some other package depends upon these packages, it would be extremely
unwise to even attempt what you are saying above.

Going back to your original post :

"How do I fix it, I apparently downloaded most of KDE (234M), over
dialup.**I *was* only *initially *after *development* packages,*because
I couldn't compile kolf and kmodemlights, I know I saw kolf in
the list of packages, I think I saw kmodemlights.**I'm*uncertain
what Kontact is, and could probably live without it."

Development packages have dependencies. For instance kdelibs-dev would
depend upon kdelibs (usually).

To do what you are trying to do (install kolf and kmodemlights) :

apt-get install kolf
apt-get install kmodemlights

That is all.

Let is download and install whatever it needs to (that is the entire magic
of using apt-get - you do not need to babysit the dependency checking
business). As to kontact :

§» apt-cache search kontact | grep "kontact"
kontact - KDE pim application
kontact-plugins - plugins for Kontact, the KDE groupware client

Its your pim application. Its a pretty useful tool to have (probably
integrates with kmail, korganizer, kaddressbook, kpilot, etc.).