dietpi_installer autopurge error

[mews-se]

Creating a bug report/issue

• [ x] I have searched the existing open and closed issues

Installing via the script from a ethernetservers.com VM.

E: Essential packages were removed and -y was used without --allow-remove-essential.
[FAILED] DietPi-Installer | APT autopurge gawk original-awk
 - Command: apt-get -y autopurge gawk original-awk

--allow-remove-essential needs to be added in some instances of running dietpi_installer on barebone Debian

[mews-se]

More error-log

[ INFO ] DietPi-Installer | Generating list of minimal packages, required for DietPi installation
environment: line 1489: mawk: command not found
removed '/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/01autoremove-kernels'
[ INFO ] DietPi-Installer | APT autopurge gawk original-awk, please wait...
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
Package 'original-awk' is not installed, so not removed
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  acl* apt-utils* base-files* bash* binutils* binutils-common*
  binutils-x86-64-linux-gnu* bsdextrautils* bzip2* ca-certificates*
  cifs-utils* console-common* console-data* cracklib-runtime* cron* curl*
  db-util* db5.3-util* dbus* debconf-i18n* debconf-utils* dialog* dirmngr*
  distro-info-data* dselect* ed* expat* fetchmail* file* finger* fontconfig*
  fontconfig-config* fonts-dejavu* fonts-dejavu-core* fonts-dejavu-extra*
  fonts-freefont-ttf* ftp* gawk* gettext* gnupg* gnupg-l10n* gnupg-utils* gpg*
  gpg-agent* gpg-wks-client* gpg-wks-server* gpgconf* gpgsm* groff-base*
  ifupdown* info* initramfs-tools-core* initscripts* insserv* iproute2*
  iputils-arping* iputils-ping* iputils-tracepath* isc-dhcp-client*
  isc-dhcp-common* kbd* klibc-utils* ldap-utils* less* libapparmor1*
  libargon2-1* libasprintf0v5* libassuan0* libbinutils* libbpf0* libbsd0*
  libc-l10n* libcap2* libcap2-bin* libcbor0* libcrack2* libcryptsetup12*
  libctf-nobfd0* libctf0* libcurl4* libdbus-1-3* libdns-export1110* libedit2*
  libelf1* libestr0* libexpat1* libext2fs2* libfastjson4* libfdisk1*
  libfido2-1* libfl2* libfontconfig1* libgdbm-compat4* libgdbm6* libgomp1*
  libgpm2* libicu67* libidn11* libip4tc2* libisc-export1105* libjson-c5*
  libklibc* libksba8* libldap-2.4-2* liblognorm5* libltdl7* libmagic-mgc*
  libmagic1* libmd0* libmnl0* libmpdec3* libmpfr6* libncurses5* libncurses6*
  libncursesw6* libnewt0.52* libnghttp2-14* libnl-3-200* libnl-genl-3-200*
  libnpth0* libodbc1* libpaper1* libpcap0.8* libpci3* libperl5.32*
  libpipeline1* libpopt0* libprocps8* libpsl5* libpython2-stdlib*
  libpython2.7-minimal* libpython2.7-stdlib* libpython3-stdlib*
  libpython3.9-minimal* libpython3.9-stdlib* libreadline8* librtmp1*
  libsasl2-2* libsasl2-modules-db* libsensors-config* libsensors5*
  libsigsegv2* libslang2* libsnmp-base* libsnmp40* libsqlite3-0* libssh2-1*
  libtalloc2* libtevent0* libtinfo5* libuchardet0* libustr-1.0-1*
  libutempter0* libwbclient0* libwrap0* libxml2* libxtables12* locales*
  logrotate* logsave* lsb-release* lsof* lynx* lynx-common* lzma* m4* mailcap*
  make* makedev* man-db* manpages* media-types* memtester* mime-support*
  mtools* nano* ncurses-term* net-tools* netbase* odbcinst* odbcinst1debian2*
  openssh-client* openssh-server* openssh-sftp-server* openssl* patch*
  pci.ids* perl* perl-modules-5.32* pinentry-curses* procinfo* procmail*
  procps* psmisc* psutils* pwgen* python-is-python2* python2* python2-minimal*
  python2.7* python2.7-minimal* python3* python3-minimal* python3.9*
  python3.9-minimal* quota* readline-common* resolvconf* rpcbind* rsync*
  rsyslog* runit-helper* sasl2-bin* screen* sharutils* snmp* ssl-cert*
  startpar* sudo* syslinux* systemd* systemd-sysv* sysv-rc* tcpdump* tcsh*
  telnet* tofrodos* traceroute* udev* unixodbc* unzip* uuid-runtime* vim*
  vim-common* vim-runtime* wget* whiptail* whois* wide-dhcpv6-client* xinetd*
  xxd* xz-utils*
WARNING: The following essential packages will be removed.
This should NOT be done unless you know exactly what you are doing!
  base-files gawk (due to base-files) bash
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 242 to remove and 96 not upgraded.
E: Essential packages were removed and -y was used without --allow-remove-essential.
[FAILED] DietPi-Installer | APT autopurge gawk original-awk
 - Command: apt-get -y autopurge gawk original-awk
./dietpi-globals: line 966: mawk: command not found
./dietpi-globals: line 1329: mawk: command not found
./dietpi-globals: line 1330: mawk: command not found
./dietpi-globals: line 1329: mawk: command not found
./dietpi-globals: line 1330: mawk: command not found

[mews-se]

Ah crap... Just now noticed that it's a OpenVZ VM. Why is this still a thing :D

Well, sorry for interrupting!

[MichaIng]

Weird, there seems to be no mawk installed on your system, while IIRC it is a dependency of an essential package. Obviously any awk providing package is now dependency of an essential package.

So we need to assure mawk is installed before attempting to purge the other two.