apt-get install $foo should clear the autoflag for $foo

[jens_acamedia]

Binary package hint: apt

i did an 'apt-get remove ubuntu-desktop' on standard edgy so that i could then 'apt-get remove evolution etc'

as expected this worked fine and my system wasnt effected - great job developers!!

only one slight problem - i am now advised that almost all packages related to the desktop are no longer required and can be removed by 'apt-get autoremove'

but - this is actually a feature - since they were all presumably installed by ubuntu-desktop

the problem and bug is this - that when i explicitly install all the packages in the list they are still considered no longer required...they should not be considered as such when they have been explicitly installed...
-i need an answer to this in part because i want to make a custom ubuntu-distro so any advice in this direction would help - e.g. does the problem emerge if a system is installed without ubuntu-desktop but with all packages from a customized live-cd?

so for example i do 'apt-get install f-spot' and get this output:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
f-spot is already the newest version.
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  f-spot libgnomecupsui1.0-1c2a tomboy evolution-webcal ekiga libglew1 openoffice.org-gnome gimp-print
.....blablabla LOTS OF PACKAGES.........
ssh-askpass-gnome linux-headers-2.6.17-10-generic sound-juicer libpisync0 hplip-data lftp
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

[jens_acamedia (commercial-acamedia)]

id be very grateful, michael, if you could give me a hint as to how this might be fixed...

i would have assumed that explicitly installing the packages would remove them from the list of autoremove...that is clearly not the case...how can i proceed then?

thanks

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Thanks for your bugreport.

Currently there is a tool called "apt-mark" that can be used to mark packages as explicitely installed. There is also support in synaptic (use Package/Automatically installed.

I think that "apt-get install $pkg" should clear the auto-flag if the package is already installed. This seems to be the most intuitive way.

Cheers,
 Michael

[Lachlan (lachlan)]

Yes, I experienced the same thing after removing evolution (an insanely slow app).

"apt-get install $pkg" does not clear this flag

"sudo apt-mark unmarkauto $pkg" does the trick.

usage: apt-mark [options] {markauto|unmarkauto} packages...

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Thanks for your bugreport.

This should be fixed with the latest version of apt in feisty, please reopen if you still see this problem.

Cheers,
 Michael