Software updater snuck in a package that is unwanted

[Paul Smith]

Please stop the unnecessary hyperbole and misuse of incendiary terms to
mean things that no one else understands them to mean.

> That is why I regard the package as a trojan.
> It can not be simply and easily and cleanly, removed.

Utterly ridiculous.  That is not even close to what "trojan" means.

The kernel can't be removed... is that a trojan?  You can't remove GNU
libc, is that a trojan as well?

Trojan has a well-understood, and pejorative, meaning.  By defaming
anything that doesn't work the way you want it to as a "trojan" you're
insulting the people who work hard to provide you with amazing software
at no charge.

> Its design hooks it into other packages, to prevent its removal.

You're completely wrong.  There's nothing wrong with the design of
unattended-upgrades and it doesn't "hook into other packages".

What's happening is that other packages have declared dependencies on
unattended-upgrades, so that when you try to remove it those other
packages are marked for removal as well.

The problem, if there is one, is with those other packages not
unattended-ugprades.

If, instead of wailing about trojans and tossing insults around, you
actually posted relevant details of the problems you are having along
with a polite "can anyone help with this", there would be a lot less
useless back-and-forth and you'd get your problems solved much more
quickly.


On Wed, 2017-10-18 at 00:54 +0800, Bret Busby wrote:
> The following packages will be REMOVED:
>    ubuntu-mate-core* ubuntu-mate-desktop* unattended-upgrades*
> 0 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 3 to remove and 0 not to upgrade.
> After this operation, 348 kB disk space will be freed.
> Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
> "
> 
> Therein lies the rub.

This looks like a misconfiguration/problem with your distribution
(Ubuntu MATE).  Clearly the problem is with ubuntu-mate packages:
apparently they're marked to depend on unattended-upgrades.  I don't
see this problem with my distribution (Ubuntu GNOME):

  $ sudo apt purge unattended-upgrades
  Reading package lists... Done
  Building dependency tree
  Reading state information... Done
  The following packages will be REMOVED:
    unattended-upgrades*
  0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
  After this operation, 319 kB disk space will be freed.
  Do you want to continue? [Y/n]

and others have reported base Ubuntu doesn't have this problem.

So, I recommend you contact the Ubuntu MATE folks and ask about this. 
Try one or more of: https://ubuntu-mate.org/community/