autoremoving metapackages doesn't remove dependencies... can we create hybrid-metapackages that do?

[Chris McClimans]

The  APT::Never-MarkAuto-Sections  default
in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/01autoremove
means that packages in the */metapackage sections do not set aptitude
markauto**.

**
http://algebraicthunk.net/~dburrows/projects/aptitude/doc/en/ch02s02s07.html

This seems to be the primary difference in the packages being treated
differently for autoremove.

I would expect that if I put custom metapackages in a local repo and made
sure the were NOT in the metapackages section, then markauto would be set
and autoremove would work.
My profile-meta-package-hybrids sound like they just need to avoid the
*/metapackage sections...

On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 12:28 PM, Jordon Bedwell <jordon at envygeeks.com>wrote:

> Think of a meta-package as a grocery list.  Think of a normal package
> as the ingredients.  With the grocery list you can add and remove
> anything you want and some things aren't explicitly required and might
> even get removed later... but with the ingredients, everything is
> required and if you remove one ingredient you might as well remove the
> rest because it's just not going to taste right.  That doesn't mean
> there aren't optional ingredients though, those are just recommends ;)
>

I'm actually trying to create custom profile-meta-packages that when
removed, remove dependent packages if they are no longer used.
I didn't think profile-meta-packages would be any different than normal
meta-packages until I saw your response.
These 'profile-meta-packages' may need to avoid actual meta-packages (from
*/metapackage sections) as dependencies if markauto isn't set during
installation.

> If they are treated differently, I'd like to know how to create a
> > hybrid-metapackage.
> > When a hybrid-metapackage is autoremoved, it's dependencies should be
> > removed with it.
>
> You can force apt (well I don't know if this is still the case though)
> by adjusting /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/*autoremove and removing
> meta-packages from the list of never auto-mark but that is pretty
> dangerous,


Commenting out the metapackages sections from Never-MarkAuto-Sections did
make it work as expected... but is dangerous as mentioned.

 grep -A4 Never-MarkAuto /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/01autoremove
  Never-MarkAuto-Sections
  {
// "metapackages";
// "restricted/metapackages";
// "universe/metapackages";

Since commenting these out works, I thought I might be able to override
APT::Never-MarkAuto-Sections on the command line.

However, it doesn't seem to zero out APT::Never-MarkAuto-Sections.

The apt.conf man page said something about using #clear on lists, but I'm
unsure how to call that on the command line.
Anyone know the correct way to zero out an APT list option on the command
line?

apt-get -o APT::Never-MarkAuto-Sections=" " install -y ubuntu-virt-mgmt
apt-get -o APT::Never-MarkAuto-Sections=" " autoremove -y ubuntu-virt-mgmt
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-discuss/attachments/20120627/9bf917d3/attachment.html>