(Please CC me, I'm not subscribed).First of all, I'll warn you that I use Ubuntu. Everybody is probably tired of Ubuntu users asking for help here, but I think my question applies equally well to Debian.
I'm struggling to understand the autoremoval behavior of aptitude 0.6.3. Let's say I have a virtual package A provided by A1 and A2. Assume that A and A1 are installed, and that I then install A2. Installing A2 also pulls in a dependency B. Now, am I wrong to expect that "aptitude remove A2" should remove B for being unused (as well as removing A2 of course)? I'm pretty sure the previous aptitude I ran (0.4.11.11) did this.
Here's a concrete example from Ubuntu Maverick (based on a quick glance at the Debian repositories it also applies to Debian experimental):
$ aptitude install gcc-4.5
The following NEW packages will be installed:
cpp-4.5{a} gcc-4.5 libmpc2{a}
*Snip*
$ aptitude remove gcc-4.5
The following packages will be REMOVED:
gcc-4.5
$ aptitude why libmpc2
id cpp-4.5 Depends libmpc2
$ aptitude why cpp-4.5
i libtool Depends gcc | c-compiler
p gcc-4.5 Provides c-compiler
p gcc-4.5 Depends cpp-4.5 (= 4.5.1-7ubuntu2)
$ aptitude remove cpp-4.5
The following packages will be REMOVED:
cpp-4.5
$ aptitude why libmpc2
i libtool Depends gcc | c-compiler
p gcc-4.5 Provides c-compiler
p gcc-4.5 Depends libmpc2
To sum it up: cpp-4.5 seems to remain installed because gcc-4.5 depends
on it, even when gcc-4.5 is installed. The same relationship seems to
hold between libmpc2 and gcc-4.5. Am I just confused?
I'll also add that I suspect that the role of the virtual package (in this case gcc) is of relevance here. The following simple example without virtual packages behaves correctly:
$ aptitude install xfig
The following NEW packages will be installed:
xaw3dg{a} xfig
$ aptitude remove xfig
The following packages will be REMOVED:
xaw3dg{u} xfig
Thanks in advance for any ideas.
--
Gard