Ubuntu Studio 19.10 Installer Causes Wanted Programs to be Removed

[Adam Thomas]

Ubuntu Studio's Installer has a feature where you can select and deselect programs you would like to be pre-installed on your system.

However, whenever I deselect some programs, after I finish installing the system and then boot into it for the first time apt wants to remove a load of my programs with its autoremove feature.

This includes programs I do intend to use and did not deselect. For example; I deselected Blender, and then Kdenlive (which I do want to use, and hadn't deselected) also got deleted.

I explain it better in a video I did on Ubuntu Studio 19.10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz_bwpPXXBc go to timestamp 1:18 which is where I begin to explain the problem.

Thanks in Advance!

[Erich Eickmeyer (eeickmeyer)]

Unfortunately, this isn't a problem within the metas.

However, it does appear to be a problem with the plugin inside Ubiquity. The mechanism is that the metapackages call the packages within the meta as dependencies. However, if one of those packages is marked for uninstallation (essentially what Ubiquity does in this case), then it marks the metapackage the package is pulled-in from for uninstallation as well. This then flags the apt system that all of those packages (which are considered dependencies of the meta) are "no longer needed". Then, when Ubiquity calls an "apt autoremove" at the end of installation, it removes those packages that have been deemed as "no longer needed".

This is a change from the intended behavior which had previously worked. I'm not sure when the change occurred, but there definitely needs to be a fix in place before 20.04. I will add this bug to the 19.10 release notes.

[Dimitri John Ledkov (xnox)]

So ubuntustudio-live ubiquity plugin does call

            install_misc.record_removed(self.ui.removed_packages,False)
            install_misc.record_removed(self.ui.removed_packages_recursive,True)
            install_misc.record_installed(self.ui.installed_packages)

And i thought that should make things marked correctly from apt point of view.

[Dimitri John Ledkov (xnox)]

We think there is a duplicate of this filed as https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1868191

[Erich Eickmeyer (eeickmeyer)]

Thanks, xnox. Added that bug as a dupe of this bug, confirmed my suspicions.

[Ubuntu QA Website (ubuntuqa)]

This bug has been reported on the Ubuntu ISO testing tracker.

A list of all reports related to this bug can be found here:
http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/reports/bugs/1851346

[MarkF (az2008)]

I experienced the same thing. However, I also experienced the installer FAILING with a brief "oopsie" msg. When I rebooted, I was presented with a COMMAND-LINE LOGIN PROMPT. In my case, I unchecked ALL optional programs.

That might not be something anyone would normally do. Therefore, it might not be a big problem.

HOWEVER, it does seem like a problem that the ERROR MSG DISAPPEARS. If the user walked away to do something else during the install, and returned to see a normal Live desktop, they'll have nothing to associate with the resulting COMMAND-LINE LOGIN PROMPT. It will be much more mysterious.

My bug-report was erroneously marked a duplicate of this one. I wanted to make clear that there is SOMETHING ELSE/WORSE(?) HAPPENING.

See: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1868191

Thank you (sorry for the shouting. I just wanted to emphasize what's being ADDED TO THIS BUG REPORT, not merely a duplicate.).

[Erich Eickmeyer (eeickmeyer)]

MarkF,

It's all the same mechanism causing the problem, just with different end results. Your other bug report was reviewed by more people than myself (Dmitiri as well as the entire Ubuntu Foundations Team during a meeting) and was deemed to be a duplicate of this bug, so I marked it as such. Believe me when I say that there's no such thing as "merely a duplicate". All things are considered in bug reports. Please don't be offended by such things a they're not personal at all.

In other words, don't worry about it. Marking a bug as a duplicate *automatically* adds it to the bug of which it is deemed to be a duplicate. I've been harping on this bug for 4 months now and it WILL (Better!) get corrected in time for LTS. It's also a known bug in 19.10 per the official release notes.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

The plugin offers anything for removal that a meta package recommends or suggests. This only works as long as there are no other things depending on those packages. Which is clearly not the case here, as for example, plymouth-theme-ubuntustudio depends plymouth-label depends fonts-ubuntu, which is in the list of packages scheduled for removal by the plugin.

Also, the plugin requests removal of the meta packages themselves, which it probably should not be doing. It's not clear to me if that would fix anything, though, but my understanding is that we try to reinstantiate metapackages.

So, the current combination of metapackages and plugin implementation does not work. I suggest that either

- the implementation is changed to offer a selected group of packages
- the recommends and suggests of metapackages are fixed such that they do not list anything anything other Depends on; and tools are added to prevent regressions
- the plugin is disabled/removal

Overall, I think this plugin is highly fragile, and not supportable, without having tools that check its assumptions on dependency trees.

List of packages scheduled for removal:

a2jmidid true
abgate true
acpi-support true
aeolus true
alsa-tools true
alsa-tools-gui true
amb-plugins true
ardour true
argyll true
autotalent true
avahi-autoipd true
avahi-daemon true
avldrums.lv2 true
blepvco true
blop true
bluez true
bluez-cups true
brasero true
calf-plugins true
calibre true
caps true
carla true
cdrdao true
cm-super-x11 true
cmt true
create-resources true
csladspa true
csound true
cups true
cups-bsd true
cups-client true
cups-filters true
darktable true
devede true
dgedit true
dispcalgui true
dpf-plugins true
drumgizmo true
drumkv1 true
dssi-host-jack true
dssi-utils true
entangle true
eq10q true
ffado-dbus-server true
ffado-mixer-qt4 true
ffado-tools true
ffmpeg true
ffmpeg2theora true
fil-plugins true
fluid-soundfont-gm true
fluidsynth true
fluidsynth-dssi true
font-manager true
fontforge true
fonts-adf-accanthis true
fonts-adf-baskervald true
fonts-adf-berenis true
fonts-adf-gillius true
fonts-adf-ikarius true
fonts-adf-irianis true
fonts-adf-libris true
fonts-adf-mekanus true
fonts-adf-oldania true
fonts-adf-romande true
fonts-adf-switzera true
fonts-adf-tribun true
fonts-adf-universalis true
fonts-adf-verana true
fonts-alee true
fonts-ancient-scripts true
fonts-atarismall true
fonts-beteckna true
fonts-bpg-georgian true
fonts-breip true
fonts-dejavu-extra true
fonts-dkg-handwriting true
fonts-dustin true
fonts-ecolier-court true
fonts-ecolier-lignes-court true
fonts-essays1743 true
fonts-f500 true
fonts-georgewilliams true
fonts-goudybookletter true
fonts-inconsolata true
fonts-indic true
fonts-isabella true
fonts-jsmath true
fonts-junicode true
fonts-jura true
fonts-kacst-one true
fonts-khmeros-core true
fonts-lao true
fonts-larabie-deco true
fonts-larabie-straight true
fonts-larabie-uncommon true
fonts-liberation true
fonts-linex true
fonts-linuxlibertine true
fonts-lklug-sinhala true
fonts-lyx true
fonts-manchufont true
fonts-noto-cjk true
fonts-noto-hinted true
fonts-noto-mono true
fonts-ocr-a true
fonts-oflb-euterpe true
fonts-okolaks true
fonts-opensymbol true
fonts-radisnoir true
fonts...

[Erich Eickmeyer (eeickmeyer)]

In that case, I'll go ahead and remove the plugin.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntustudio-live - 1.4

---------------
ubuntustudio-live (1.4) focal; urgency=medium

  * Remove package selection plugin (LP: #1851346)

 -- Erich Eickmeyer <email address hidden> Tue, 07 Apr 2020 09:03:29 -0700