Re: Suggestion for change to debian package format

[Bruce Sass <bsass@ecn.ab.ca>]

Has a more primitive method been considered (i.e., an option to dpkg
which tries to purge or remove stuff a package depends on)? 
e.g.,  dpkg --remove|--purge [--excise] <package>


-- 
On Mon, 29 Mar 1999, Mitch Blevins wrote:

> Mark Phillips wrote:
> > [snip nice suggestion] 
> 
> This has already been discussed and is being addressed in apt.
> Here's how it will work (if I understand correctly):
> 
> Apt will keep a boolean flag called 'Auto' for each package installed
> on your system.  'Auto' is short for 'Automatically uninstall this
> package when it is not required anymore because of a dependency'.
> 
> So, when you install package foo, and apt automatically installs
> libfoo1 and libfoo2 because they are required by foo, then they will
> be marked with the 'Auto' flag.  Later, if you deinstall foo, then apt
> will also deinstall libfoo1 and libfoo2, provided they are no longer
> needed by any other packages.
> 
> This also allows you to easily have groups of packages.  For example,
> you can have a "Gnome" package that depends on all the various libraries
> and packages required by gnome.  Later, if you decide the gnome sucks,
> you can just uninstall the "Gnome" meta-package and all the other unused
> libs and packages will go away as well.
> 
> Please note that both the automatic marking of packages as 'Auto' and
> the automatic removal of 'Auto' packages will be a configurable option
> in apt, so you won't be stuck with this behavior.  Also, you will be
> able to toggle the 'Auto' flag directly from any of the apt front-ends.
> 
> Is that what you were looking for?
> 
> -Mitch
> 
> 
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later,

	Bruce