does not automatically deinstall libqt4-dev when it should

[Rolf Leggewie]

I observed on my trusty box that aptitude keeps libqt4-dev even though it is marked as automatically installed and no other package depends on or recommends it.

$ sudo aptitude show libqt4-dev|grep Auto
Automatically installed: yes
$ aptitude why libqt4-dev
i postbooks-updater Depends libqt4-sql-psql
i A libqt4-sql-psql Suggests libqt4-dev

In other words, there is no package on the system that at least depends on or recommends libqt4-dev to be installed. Since the package is marked as automatically installed aptitude should offer to remove it which for some unknown reason does not happen

[Axel Beckert (xtaran)]

Hi Rolf,

Rolf Leggewie wrote:
> I observed on my trusty box that aptitude keeps libqt4-dev even though
> it is marked as automatically installed and no other package depends on
> or recommends it.

But libqt4-sql-psql suggests it:

> $ sudo aptitude show libqt4-dev|grep Auto
> Automatically installed: yes
> $ aptitude why libqt4-dev
> i postbooks-updater Depends libqt4-sql-psql
> i A libqt4-sql-psql Suggests libqt4-dev
>
> In other words, there is no package on the system that at least depends
> on or recommends libqt4-dev to be installed. Since the package is
> marked as automatically installed aptitude should offer to remove it
> which for some unknown reason does not happen

That's on purpose. Suggests also causes a package to be kept if it is
marked as automatically installed. (At least with the default
settings. Not sure if this behaviour actually can be configured.) At
least for me that's also the behaviour I'd expect and consider
appropriate.

If there's no opposition, I'd close it with "invalid" as the described
behaviour is considered a feature and not a bug.

But if you consider that either the (non-) configurability or default
values for this behaviour inappropriate, I suggest to mark it either
as "opinion" or wishlist severity.

  Regards, Axel
--
 ,''`. | Axel Beckert <email address hidden>, http://people.debian.org/~abe/
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[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

My bad, closing as invalid.

Thank you for the explanation.