[Aptitude-devel] Bug#848011: Bug#848011: aptitude doesn't ask for confirmation of removal for "markauto", leading to surprise removals

[Alexey Kopytko]

On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 7:21 PM, Axel Beckert <abe at debian.org> wrote:

> If you insist on the old behaviour, you can call e.g. "aptitude
> markauto … && aptitude install" ("aptitude install" without any
> further parameter) as a workaround.

Not nearly close to the previous behavior.

Even if I reject the uninstallation in the workaround you suggesting,
the package would remain in pending-delete state. Previously I'll have
original state.

Moreover, to reinstantiate it one should use install command but not markauto:

aptitude markauto foo # has no effect
aptitude install foo # really removes the flag

Which is another source of confusion. See, there's more to the confusion now.

> Marking this as wontfix for now as the introduced changed fixed
> several (!) other bug reports, see especially #142699:
>
> https://bugs.debian.org/142699
> https://bugs.debian.org/567079
> https://bugs.debian.org/764299

I've checked these bugs from the NEWS file before filing this bug. Not
a single one mentions markauto command as a source of the trouble. No
one there asked for the new behavior for markauto.

Hence your decision to mark this as wontfix is all but justified.

> Manuel: In case you see any chance to add the old behaviour as
> optional feature/backwards compatibility flag (e.g. --immediately),
> feel free to remove the wontfix tag. (Then again, there's an easy
> workaround to get the old behaviour as shown above...)

If I might add my cent: new behavior must be optional for every
potentially-destructive operation.

People know that markauto ask for confirmation. They expect it. For example:
http://askubuntu.com/a/248297/135652
https://debian-administration.org/article/462/Cleaning_up_a_Debian_GNU/Linux_system

-Alexey