[Aptitude-devel] Bug#827508: aptitude: Will not remove recommended package

[Itaï BEN YAACOV]

Package: aptitude
Version: 0.8.1-1
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,

I have aspell and aspell-xx installed on my system, and I want to remove them.
After marking removal and pressing 'g' it does nothing - just displays a red
status line with some suggestions it does not try to enact.

I believe this is some bug in the new treatment of 'Recommends':
libaspell Recommends an aspell dictionary, and this is about to be broken.
But instead of just warning me about it, aptitude
a. Merely suggets action to resolve this, without even telling me what
the actual problem is (no broken packages)
b. When Depends is broken pressing 'g' enacts the current suggested resolution
and we can move to actual installation / removal.  Here, it does not enact it
(which is OK - these are merely Recommends which are broken) but does not move
on to the 'let's do it' screen -- simply a flicker (so it thinks it is doing
something) but just staying where we were.  Ad infinitum.

I do not want to set APT::Install-Recommends False , since it is useful.
I just want to be able to say, OK, fine, it breaks a Recommends, now can we 
do it already ?

Cheers,
Itaï.


p.s.
Yes I know I can remove packages using other tools.


-- Package-specific info:
Terminal: xterm-256color
$DISPLAY not set.
which aptitude: /usr/bin/aptitude

aptitude version information:
aptitude 0.8.1
Compiler: g++ 5.3.1 20160429
Compiled against:
  apt version 5.0.0
  NCurses version 6.0
  libsigc++ version: 2.8.0
  Gtk+ support disabled.
  Qt support disabled.

Current library versions:
  NCurses version: ncurses 6.0.20160319
  cwidget version: 0.5.17
  Apt version: 5.0.0

aptitude linkage:
	linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffc575c1000)
	libapt-pkg.so.5.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libapt-pkg.so.5.0 (0x00007fd3c80bd000)
	libncursesw.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libncursesw.so.5 (0x00007fd3c7e8d000)
	libtinfo.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.5 (0x00007fd3c7c62000)
	libsigc-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsigc-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fd3c7a5b000)
	libcwidget.so.3 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcwidget.so.3 (0x00007fd3c775e000)
	libsqlite3.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsqlite3.so.0 (0x00007fd3c7459000)
	libboost_iostreams.so.1.58.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_iostreams.so.1.58.0 (0x00007fd3c723f000)
	libboost_filesystem.so.1.58.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_filesystem.so.1.58.0 (0x00007fd3c7026000)
	libboost_system.so.1.58.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_system.so.1.58.0 (0x00007fd3c6e21000)
	libxapian.so.22 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxapian.so.22 (0x00007fd3c6a1d000)
	libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fd3c6800000)
	libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00007fd3c647f000)
	libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007fd3c6181000)
	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007fd3c5f6b000)
	libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007fd3c5bc6000)
	libutil.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libutil.so.1 (0x00007fd3c59c3000)
	libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007fd3c57bf000)
	libresolv.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libresolv.so.2 (0x00007fd3c55a7000)
	libz.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00007fd3c538c000)
	libbz2.so.1.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libbz2.so.1.0 (0x00007fd3c517c000)
	liblzma.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/liblzma.so.5 (0x00007fd3c4f58000)
	liblz4.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/liblz4.so.1 (0x00007fd3c4d46000)
	librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007fd3c4b3d000)
	libuuid.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libuuid.so.1 (0x00007fd3c4938000)
	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x0000558736be5000)

-- System Information:
Debian Release: stretch/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (600, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 4.6.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages aptitude depends on:
ii  aptitude-common            0.8.1-1
ii  libapt-pkg5.0              1.2.13
ii  libboost-filesystem1.58.0  1.58.0+dfsg-5.1
ii  libboost-iostreams1.58.0   1.58.0+dfsg-5.1
ii  libboost-system1.58.0      1.58.0+dfsg-5.1
ii  libc6                      2.22-11
ii  libcwidget3v5              0.5.17-4+b1
ii  libgcc1                    1:6.1.1-6
ii  libncursesw5               6.0+20160319-1
ii  libsigc++-2.0-0v5          2.8.0-1
ii  libsqlite3-0               3.13.0-1
ii  libstdc++6                 6.1.1-6
ii  libtinfo5                  6.0+20160319-1
ii  libxapian22v5              1.2.23-1

Versions of packages aptitude recommends:
ii  libparse-debianchangelog-perl  1.2.0-8
ii  sensible-utils                 0.0.9

Versions of packages aptitude suggests:
pn  apt-xapian-index                <none>
pn  aptitude-doc-en | aptitude-doc  <none>
pn  debtags                         <none>
pn  tasksel                         <none>

-- no debconf information