Package: aptitude Severity: wishlist Hi, [aptitude not properly handling packages installed by other tools]
ACK. I very much prefer the way debfoster handles this: if there are new, unknown packages on the system, it will ask, rather than assume, whether a package is wanted or not. And will only do this for packages that are not depended upon; so if you ever remove a package, it will ask about its dependencies again.
aptitude could be taught to have "auto-installed" being Yes,No or Unknown. Whenever a package that is in "Unknown" state could be removed if it were only installed as a dependency, aptitude should list them in the "actions to be performed" view as being still installed and unknown whether they can be removed. Until I make a decision (which I am not forced to do at this moment) the package would reappear in this list everytime it could be deinstalled (i.e. until another package depending on it is installed or a decision is made).
(I'd also like to be able to search for these packages in order to clean up after my fellow sysadmins)
Simon