[Bug 1479207] Re: Never-MarkAuto-Sections not working correctly

[Adam Conrad]

(trusty-amd64)root at nosferatu:/home/adconrad/apt-test# dpkg -l apt apt-utils libapt-inst1.5 libapt-pkg4.12 | awk '/^.i/ {print $2 "    " $3}'
apt    1.0.1ubuntu2.9
apt-utils    1.0.1ubuntu2.9
libapt-inst1.5:amd64    1.0.1ubuntu2.9
libapt-pkg4.12:amd64    1.0.1ubuntu2.9
(trusty-amd64)root at nosferatu:/home/adconrad/apt-test# apt-get install ubuntu-minimal
[...]
0 upgraded, 61 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
[...]
(trusty-amd64)root at nosferatu:/home/adconrad/apt-test# apt-get --purge autoremove ubuntu-minimal
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  ubuntu-minimal*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 61.4 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1479207

Title:
  Never-MarkAuto-Sections not working correctly

Status in apt package in Ubuntu:
  New
Status in apt source package in Trusty:
  Fix Released
Status in apt source package in Vivid:
  New
Status in apt package in Debian:
  New

Bug description:
  [ SRU Justification ]
  Not only is this behaviour broken for every day use, but it also completely breaks livefs generation for ubuntukylin, and causes most of $flavour-desktop to be on the autoremove list in any point release livefs, making this bug point-release critical.

  [ Test Case ]
  Install a metapackage (say, ubuntu-standard), and then "apt-get --purge autoremove ubuntu-standard" and check that only that package is removed, rather than large chunks of its dependencies.

  Further, also run the test case from comment 2 of bug #1429041 and
  make sure the previous fix didn't regress.

  [ Regression Potential ]
  My fix was tested locally against both test cases and passes with flying colours, so I don't see how this can make things any worse than they already are.

  [ Original Report ]
  In current trusty, vivid, and wily, when you install ubuntu-minimal (from the "metapackages" section) in a clean chroot, some 75ish packages are installed.  If you then "apt-get --purge autoremove ubuntu-minimal", some large portion (between 20 and 40, depending on the target release) of those dependencies are removed again.

  If this test is repeated putting the release pocket version of
  apt/libapt on hold, the purge/autoremove only removes the metapackage,
  but none of its dependencies, so this is likely a regression brought
  on from the previous autoremoval fix.

  This bug is release-critical for the 14.04.3 point release, as we
  install using metapackages instead of tasks in point releases, thus
  meaning that anyone removing ubuntu-desktop for any reason will end up
  with dozens (potentially hundreds) of packages on the autoremoval
  list.

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