Question about removing packages

[locutus]

Lets say I want to remove Thunderbird (I use gmail online). If I tell Synaptic to remove it, it also wants to remove "mint-mets-gnome" and "mint-meta-main", both of which sound too important to delete. So what to do? The options I see are:

-don't remove Thunderbird, or
-remove all said packages and then re-install the important-sounding ones, or
-remove everything and hope the computer boots ok next time.

I assume the 3rd option is foolish. This problem (removing the two meta packages) happens very frequently when I try to remove some package that does not seem to be essential to Mint. Why? What does Thunderbird have to do with the smooth running of Mint?

Some direction and explanation would be appreciated.

[locutus]

Remove Thunderbird without worry. It will not affect your system stability. Just right click Thunderbird on mintmenu and choose Uninstall.

Right, but it wants to take the two Mint meta packages with it. Why? And, how important are they and should I reinstall them right away or are they just baggage?

[Guestman]

This is a dependency problem. Thunderbird is the default mail reader so it is in the meta packages of the mint desktop. Remove it remove also the meta packages and install the meta packages should install it! So you should keep it even if you don't use it.

[locutus]

This is a dependency problem. Thunderbird is the default mail reader so it is in the meta packages of the mint desktop. Remove it remove also the meta packages and install the meta packages should install it! So you should keep it even if you don't use it.

That's exactly the answer I expected but didn't want to hear

[proxima_centauri]

It's possible that removing the mint-meta-main and mint-meta-gnome packages won't result in anything negative, as mentioned here
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=21474
EDIT: I didn't notice anything when I uninstalled these two meta packages running Mint 6 in Virtualbox.

[linuxviolin]

It's possible that removing the mint-meta-main and mint-meta-gnome packages won't result in anything negative, as mentioned here
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=21474
EDIT: I didn't notice anything when I uninstalled these two meta packages running Mint 6 in Virtualbox.

Hmm why try to remove these meta packages just for Thunderbird? Why risk it? These meta packages are probably for the Mint Gnome desktop and main configuration, ""mint-meta-gnome" and "mint-meta-main"", so if you remove them you risk perhaps to loose some Mint aspects... this is an assumption but it seems plausible, right?

Thunderbird is not a so big package on the hard disk, you can keep it without problem, right?

[locutus]

Thunderbird is not a so big package on the hard disk, you can keep it without problem, right?

Right. But Thunderbird was just an example. There were several others that produced the same result when trying to delete any of them, too.

On my laptop I have both 32-bit and 64-bit editions installed. I removed all the packages from the 32-bit but left them installed on the 64-bit. Now I'll just wait and see if there are any longer-term consequences. Short-term, 32-bit is working fine so far.