[Aptitude-devel] Bug#638049: aptitude forgets which packages were installed automatically

[Francesco Poli]

On Sun, 27 May 2012 22:10:36 +0200 Francesco Poli wrote:

[...]
> I also noticed that sometimes, aptitude says it will purge some
> packages, but actually leaves them installed (even though scheduled for
> purging), as in:
> 
>   $ aptitude search ~i | grep ^.p | cut -c 1-35
>   ip  autotools-dev                  
>   ip  hwdata                         
>   ip  libavahi-gobject0              
>   ip  libexiv2-9                     
>   ip  libgnome-desktop-2-17
> 
> I am sure I have never manually installed these packages.
> I will have to manually purge them, to have them actually purged!
[...]

This is very weird!
Please take a look at what happened on one of boxes I administer:

# aptitude search ~i | grep ^id | cut -c 1-35
idA gir1.2-clutter-1.0            
idA gir1.2-cogl-1.0               
idA gir1.2-coglpango-1.0          
idA libclutter-1.0-0              
idA libcogl-common                
idA libcogl-pango0                
idA libcogl9                      
# aptitude search ~i | grep ^ip | cut -c 1-35
ip  autotools-dev                 
ip  gir1.2-gtk-3.0                
ip  hwdata                        
ip  libavahi-gobject0             
ip  libgnome-desktop-2-17         
ip  libseed-gtk3-0                
# aptitude --purge-unused markauto autotools-dev gir1.2-gtk-3.0 hwdata \
  libavahi-gobject0 libgnome-desktop-2-17 libseed-gtk3-0
The following packages will be REMOVED:  
  autotools-dev{ap} hwdata{ap} libavahi-gobject0{ap} 
  libgnome-desktop-2-17{ap} libseed-gtk3-0{ap} 
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 5 to remove and 3 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B of archives. After unpacking 3,041 kB will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] Y
...
# aptitude search ~i | grep ^ip | cut -c 1-35
ip  gir1.2-clutter-1.0             
ip  gir1.2-cogl-1.0                
ip  gir1.2-coglpango-1.0           
ip  gir1.2-gtk-3.0                 
ip  libclutter-1.0-0               
ip  libcogl-common                 
ip  libcogl-pango0                 
ip  libcogl9
# aptitude --purge-unused markauto gir1.2-clutter-1.0 gir1.2-cogl-1.0 \
  gir1.2-coglpango-1.0 gir1.2-gtk-3.0 libclutter-1.0-0 libcogl-common \
  libcogl-pango0 libcogl9
The following packages will be REMOVED:  
  gir1.2-clutter-1.0{ap} gir1.2-cogl-1.0{ap} gir1.2-coglpango-1.0{ap} 
  gir1.2-gtk-3.0{ap} libclutter-1.0-0{ap} libcogl-common{ap} 
  libcogl-pango0{ap} libcogl9{ap} 
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 8 to remove and 3 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B of archives. After unpacking 4,981 kB will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] Y
...
# aptitude search ~i | grep ^ip | cut -c 1-35
# aptitude search ~i | grep ^id | cut -c 1-35


The weird thing is that the first set of packages (the ones which were
initially shown as "idA") lost their auto-flag, after the second set of
packages (initially shown as "ip ") were marked with the auto-flag (and
immediately purged).
I had to re-set the auto-flag for the first set of packages, in order
to see them automatically purged!



-- 
 http://www.inventati.org/frx/frx-gpg-key-transition-2010.txt
 New GnuPG key, see the transition document!
..................................................... Francesco Poli .
 GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82  3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE
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