Control: tag -1 wontfix On Fri, Apr 25, 2025 at 11:37:33PM +0200, inasprecali wrote: > Package: apt > Version: 2.6.1 > Severity: normal > X-Debbugs-Cc: [email protected] > > Dear Maintainer, > > Running apt autoremove (or autopurge) resulted in some packages being > marked as manual afterwards, as shown by the output of apt-mark > showmanual. > > Here is what happened in my particular situation. > > I run the full GNOME desktop environment, obtained by installing the > "gnome" metapackage (not gnome-core). Some time later, I also > installed the "libreoffice" metapackage. > > Afterwards, I noticed that the libreoffice metapackage also pulls in > libreoffice-base and libreoffice-draw, which I am not using. Since I > noticed that the gnome metapackage depends on the following packages: > > - libreoffice-writer > - libreoffice-impress > - libreoffice-draw > - libreoffice-calc > > which are the only parts of the LibreOffice suite I use regularly, I > decided to remove the libreoffice metapackage to tidy things up. > > To do so, I marked it as "automatically installed" by running > "apt-mark auto libreoffice", then running "apt autoremove" > > As expected, packages that were now no longer required, including the > libreoffice metapackage itself, were removed. To my surprise, the > following packages were later marked as manual according to apt-mark. > Here is the output of apt-mark showmanual | grep libreoffice right > after autoremoval: > > libreoffice-calc > libreoffice-core > libreoffice-draw > libreoffice-gtk3 > libreoffice-impress > libreoffice-writer > > Before autoremoval, only libreoffice-gtk3 was listed, which was > expected since I did install that package manually. > > Using autopurge instead of autoremove produces the same result. > Interestingly enough, if I just run "apt autoremove libreoffice" > directly instead of using apt-mark auto and _then_ running apt > atoremove, the issue does not occur: autoremove does not mark any > additional packages as manual. > > To summarize, the following commands should be sufficient to reproduce > the issue: > > apt install gnome && apt install libreoffice && apt-mark auto libreoffice && > apt autoremove > > After a brief interaction on the #debian channel on the IRC server > irc.debian.org, another user was able to reproduce the issue on > Trixie. This bug report specifically refers to Bookworm. > > The main question is: is this the expected behavior?
Yes. > > If so, this should be described in detail in the official > documentation, preferably in the manpage. I couldn't find anything > about this anywhere in the documentation or the internet. This is an implementation detail of the solver to not remove entire desktops and cause systems to become inoperable when a metapackage is being removed. i.e. if you just run apt remove libreoffice-writer, it should not remove your entire gnome desktop, only the metapackage that pulls in libreoffice-writer and preserve the rest. I do not think we should be committing to this behavior to the extent of documenting it, it's a last resort safe guard and not a particularly good one at that, and we might want to improve on it. -- debian developer - deb.li/jak | jak-linux.org - free software dev ubuntu core developer i speak de, en
