[Aptitude-devel] Bug#341400: aptitude: Allow manual setting of dependancies

[Daniel Hartwig]

> However, I would like to have an option to manually [install]
> a dependency, which keeps a package automatically installed.  For
> example, I don't want suggested packages to always be installed with a
> package, but in many cases I want some of them.  What I currently have
> to do is to manually install them, which means they will not be
> deinstalled when I remove the package which suggests them.

If you manually install a suggested or recommended package, then mark it
as automatically-installed, it will remain installed.  This depends on
the setting of APT::AutoRemove::SuggestsImportant, which defaults to
true.

Where an actual relationship exists, the package should not be removed.

Nothing to see here either.

> In some
> other cases there may not even be a suggests relation, and I might
> still consider it "automatically installed because of this package".
>
> So in short: I'd like each package to have the option of getting extra
> dependancies, manually specified by the user, which keep automatically
> installed packages from being removed.

Ok.  Creating dependencies, that could be a useful extension.

Note that you can currently achieve this behaviour by creating local
metapackages.  Such a package should depend on the main package of
interest, and either suggest or recommend the supplementary package.
Then you install the metapackage rather than the main package.

Local metapackages are /extremely/ useful to control an entire set of
applications of interest.[1]

Regards

[1] <http://juliank.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/managing-system-package-selections-using-custom-meta-packages/>