[Aptitude-devel] Bug#902652: aptitude: Does not autoremove kernel and can't tell me why

[Nikolaus Rath]

Package: aptitude
Version: 0.8.7-1
Severity: normal

For some reason aptitude refuses to automatically remove kernel packages
that apt-get would remove - and it doesn't even know why:

# apt autoremove
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  linux-image-4.12.0-0.bpo.2-amd64 linux-image-4.14.0-0.bpo.2-amd64 linux-image-4.9.0-3-amd64 linux-image-4.9.0-4-amd64
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 4 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 770 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n
Abort.

# aptitude why linux-image-4.9.0-3-amd64
Automatically installed, current version 4.9.30-2+deb9u5, priority optional
No dependencies require to install linux-image-4.9.0-3-amd64

# aptitude upgrade
No packages will be installed, upgraded, or removed.
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B of archives. After unpacking 0 B will be used.
  

(same result when entering interactive mode and pressing "g").



-- Package-specific info:
Terminal: xterm-256color
$DISPLAY is set.
which aptitude: /usr/bin/aptitude

aptitude version information:
aptitude 0.8.7
Compiler: g++ 6.3.0 20170406
Compiled against:
  apt version 5.0.1
  NCurses version 6.0
  libsigc++ version: 2.10.0
  Gtk+ support disabled.
  Qt support disabled.

Current library versions:
  NCurses version: ncurses 6.0.20161126
  cwidget version: 0.5.17
  Apt version: 5.0.1

aptitude linkage:
	linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffc9dbea000)
	libapt-pkg.so.5.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libapt-pkg.so.5.0 (0x00007fd293229000)
	libncursesw.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libncursesw.so.5 (0x00007fd292ff9000)
	libtinfo.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.5 (0x00007fd292dcf000)
	libsigc-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsigc-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fd292bc8000)
	libcwidget.so.3 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcwidget.so.3 (0x00007fd2928cb000)
	libsqlite3.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsqlite3.so.0 (0x00007fd2925c3000)
	libboost_iostreams.so.1.62.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_iostreams.so.1.62.0 (0x00007fd2923ab000)
	libboost_filesystem.so.1.62.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_filesystem.so.1.62.0 (0x00007fd292192000)
	libboost_system.so.1.62.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_system.so.1.62.0 (0x00007fd291f8e000)
	libxapian.so.30 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxapian.so.30 (0x00007fd291b7a000)
	libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fd29195d000)
	libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00007fd2915db000)
	libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007fd2912d7000)
	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007fd2910c0000)
	libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007fd290d21000)
	libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007fd290b1d000)
	libresolv.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libresolv.so.2 (0x00007fd290906000)
	libz.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00007fd2906ec000)
	libbz2.so.1.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libbz2.so.1.0 (0x00007fd2904dc000)
	liblzma.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/liblzma.so.5 (0x00007fd2902b6000)
	liblz4.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/liblz4.so.1 (0x00007fd2900a4000)
	librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007fd28fe9c000)
	libuuid.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libuuid.so.1 (0x00007fd28fc97000)
	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fd293bf2000)

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 9.4
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.14.0-0.bpo.3-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_US.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            0.8.7-1
ii  libapt-pkg5.0              1.4.8
ii  libboost-filesystem1.62.0  1.62.0+dfsg-4
ii  libboost-iostreams1.62.0   1.62.0+dfsg-4
ii  libboost-system1.62.0      1.62.0+dfsg-4
ii  libc6                      2.24-11+deb9u3
ii  libcwidget3v5              0.5.17-4+b1
ii  libgcc1                    1:6.3.0-18+deb9u1
ii  libncursesw5               6.0+20161126-1+deb9u2
ii  libsigc++-2.0-0v5          2.10.0-1
ii  libsqlite3-0               3.16.2-5+deb9u1
ii  libstdc++6                 6.3.0-18+deb9u1
ii  libtinfo5                  6.0+20161126-1+deb9u2
ii  libxapian30                1.4.3-2

Versions of packages aptitude recommends:
pn  libparse-debianchangelog-perl  <none>
ii  sensible-utils                 0.0.9+deb9u1

Versions of packages aptitude suggests:
ii  apt-xapian-index                0.49
ii  aptitude-doc-en [aptitude-doc]  0.8.7-1
ii  debtags                         2.1.2
ii  tasksel                         3.39

-- no debconf information