[Aptitude-devel] Bug#683859: Bug#683859: aptitude: APT::Get::Build-Dep-Automatic is not honored

[Andrew Pimlott]

Excerpts from Axel Beckert's message of Sat Aug 04 14:51:35 -0700 2012:
> Andrew Pimlott wrote:
> > The "apt-get build-dep" command honors the APT::Get::Build-Dep-Automatic
> > option (to mark installed packages as automatically installed).  The
> > "aptitude build-dep" command does not honor this option.  It would be
> > less confusing if both would honor this option.
> 
> I'm not sure if that would work as expected, because in comparison to
> apt-get (which just tells the user about no more needed packages by
> default), aptitude automatically uninstalls by default all packages
> which are marked as automatically installed and which have not at
> least one reverse dependency installed. This means aptitude would
> uninstall all those packages on the next aptitude run.

I agree this may be less than ideal (a way to hold off the automatic
uninstalls until ready would be nice), but it is still very useful:

1.  Often you only want the build-deps for the duration of a build, so
    the next run of aptitude is the right time to uninstall.

2.  aptitude won't automatically uninstall packages at the command line
    (except in the case you explicitly remove packages that allow others
    to be uninstalled).  If you work mostly at the command line, there
    is no problem.  (Except that the autoremove command is not there, as
    per my other bug, so you need to enter the UI for that.)

3.  In the UI, you can hold off the uninstalls by installing with the
    'I' command.

So there would still be a lot of value for me!  However, your point
might argue for making it a different option, instead of reusing
APT::Get::Build-Dep-Automatic.

Andrew