[Aptitude-devel] Bug#683866: aptitude does not have an autoremove command

[Andrew Pimlott]

Excerpts from Andrew Pimlott's message of Sat Aug 04 20:06:36 -0700 2012:
> Excerpts from Daniel Hartwig's message of Sat Aug 04 17:53:08 -0700 2012:
> > > aptitude does not have the autoremove command that apt-get has.  There
> > > does not appear to be any way to uninstall automatically installed
> > > packages from the command line with aptitude.
> > 
> > Aptitude operates under the principal that you either wish for it to
> > manage unused packages, or you do not.  The default is the manage
> > unused packages but this can be changed by setting
> > Aptitude::Delete-Unused "0".
> > 
> > When managing unused packages any action will cause their removal:
> 
> Thanks for the explanation.  I have had Delete-Unused set to "true"
> forever, so I guess I forgot that this is the default behavior.

Wait, I got confused: so Delete-Unused "true" (my setting) is the
default behavior.  I definitely don't see automatically installed but
unused packages deleted on "any action".  For example, right now, I have
an automatically installed but unused package.  If I go into the UI and
press 'g', the unused package is about to be removed.  But if run
"aptitude install" on some random package:

    % sudo aptitude install -s unclutter
    The following NEW packages will be installed:
      unclutter
    0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded

It is not about to remove the unused package.  So it's far from true
that "any action" will cause their removal.  In my experience, typical
command line use practically never causes automatic removal.

Still, your workaround for lack of autoremove holds, so I no longer have
a complaint!

Andrew