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

[Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo]

Contol: tags -1 + wontfix
Contol: close -1


Hi,

2012-12-08 04:49 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.

Agreed.


>> 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.

There are lots of complications with this, for example what happens when
there are transitions, or conflicts between packages that you want
installed.

Implementing this feature in a way that plays nice with the rest of
apt/aptitude dependency resolution would be a very non-trivial effort.


>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/>


(equivs is also easy to use for this)

There's also the possibility to use user-tags for this purpose, to
remind you why a package was installed by you, in the case that you
forget.


As it is, I don't think that this is going to be implemented any time
soon, and seeing that it was already open for a decade with no action, I
am going to close it as +wontfix.


Cheers.
-- 
Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo <manuel.montezelo at gmail.com>