[Aptitude-devel] Bug#668912: aptitude marks random packages are manually installed.

[Daniel Hartwig]

On 14 August 2012 09:21, Mark Lodato <lodatom at gmail.com> wrote:
> $ cat /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/03manual
> DPkg::Post-Invoke      { "/etc/apt/manual_package_update.sh"; };
>
> Shortly after setting up my new script, I caught apt-get causing this problem.
>
> $ sudo apt-get purge xscreensaver gnome-screensaver

> --- /etc/apt/manual_packages    2012-08-13 20:17:53.517596821 -0400
> +++ /etc/apt/manual_packages.new    2012-08-13 21:08:09.517625898 -0400
> +base-files
> +google-chrome-stable
> +sessioninstaller
> +xserver-common
> +xserver-xorg-core
>
> So, I don't think this is necessarily an issue with aptitude.

Perhaps.  Was the most recent package manager used before that apt-get
or aptitude?

Aptitude currently twiddles with auto-installed under various
circumstances.  Running this script on DPkg::Post-Invoke is not
sufficient to capture the final state that *aptitude* leaves packages
in.  You will often notice the “writing package states” when starting
and exiting the interactive interface.  The very act of starting
aptitude as root after having used another package manager may alter
some package states.

To truly identify the change of state by different commands the script
should also be run after every invocation of aptitude.