Re: aptitude --mind-your-own-business option?

[Ken Irving <fnkci@uaf.edu>]

On Sat, Dec 02, 2006 at 01:39:04AM -0900, Ken Irving wrote:
>   $ sudo aptitude install wmmoonclock -s
>   ...
>   The following packages are unused and will be REMOVED:
>     groff imagemagick libconfig-inifiles-perl perlmagick python2.3 python2.3-iconvcodec 
> ...
> 
> Per another thread, I tried to use the "unmarkauto" command to fix things,
> but apprently the need to clean things up is still there
> ...

The keep-all command is also mentioned, but it too doesn't seem 
to fix things.

> I'll probably just go back to using apt-get, and probably everything
> will be fine until the next time I decide to try aptitude.  Is there a
> compelling reason to bother?

The fine manual offers some help, but it seems to assume use of the
interactive version:

    As with any automatic process, there is a potential for things to go haywire. 
    ...
    You can cancel the automatic flag at any time by pressing m...

But surely aptitude can work off the command line, right?

The man page shows this:

             <package>&m
                Mark <package> as having been manually installed.

So I tried 

  $ sudo aptitude install groff\&m
  ...
  The following packages are unused and will be REMOVED:
    groff imagemagick ...

However, using install <package> without the &m suffix does appear to
work, and maybe that's enough to get aptitude -- I mean, my machine --
straightened out.

Ken

-- 
Ken Irving, fnkci@uaf.edu