Bug#559194: Unused automatically installed packages don't get removed on upgrade
On Mar 30, David Kalnischkies wrote:
> Common pratice is it to place a package in 'oldlibs' section as it
> will be grabbed by deborphan then. You can switch the priority, too,
> and the description should be changed.
If this will be a policy obeyed by all packages the problem would
be solved. deborphan would list the obsolete package and give you
the hint to check it. That's not perfect, but still would give
you all information to keep your system clean.
So file the bug against the package which does not conform to this
policy? Or is this "common practice" voluntarily?
> If its priority extra, being in oldlibs and
> the description says something about a transitional package,
> it is way easier to hit 'yes'…
Agreed. A clear policy for unique tagging or at least a unique
description of obsolete packages instead of the current "dummy",
"obsolete", "transitional", "can be removed safely" mess would
be helpful too.
> Best at last: Now that support has landed in squeeze APT and
> dpkg for 'disappearing packages', try this to avoid the transition
> package mess alltogether.
I did not know about that so far, thanks for the hint. On a first
view it sounds somewhat dangerous for the consistency of package
databases to me. I guess I would have preferred a clear policy
and tagging for transitional packages instead. But that's going
off-topic here ...
Regards
Uwe
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