Re: cleanly getting rid of manually installed transitional packages due to rename

[deloptes <deloptes@gmail.com>]

Vincent Lefevre wrote:

> On 2020-04-21 17:39:55 +0200, nito@dismail.de wrote:
>> On Tue, Apr 21, 2020 at 17:07:52 +0200, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
>> > Sometimes packages get renamed. [...]
>> > 
>> > [...] if one
>> > wants to remove it, then apt or aptitude will also want to remove
>> > the new package because this new package has not been installed
>> > manually and its only reverse dependency (the transitional package)
>> > has just been removed by this operation. [...]
>> > 
>> > Is there a way to avoid this behavior automatically, i.e. by
>> > forwarding the "manually installed" state automatically to the
>> > new package?
>> 
>> You can use apt-mark to mark the new package as manually installed.
> 
> But I said *automatically*. I want to avoid tracking renames, as
> it is easy to forget something, and some important package could
> be removed in case of mistake (if I forget to mark the package
> as manually installed).


your case "sometimes" is nothing concrete. From my experience the best with
debian is to follow the stream (collective IQ is higher than yours). If
package is being renamed there is usually a replacement. You install the
replacement and can remove whatever needs to.

I can't imagine handling all the packages that were installed automatically
and marking them one by one. Why should I - better open your eyes when get
asked what would be installed as dependency and decide what to do with it
on the sport.

If important package is removed though there are two ways. You either notice
immediately and reinstall it, or you were just thinking it was important :)