[Cupt-user] autoremoval of too much packages

[Eugene V. Lyubimkin]

Hi Javier,

2013-07-01 16:54, Javier Barroso:
> # cupt install cupt  # want to remove some packages from my computer
> that it is being used  (gdm3 for example)
> # apt-get install cupt # will install cupt correctly
> # aptitude install cupt # will install cupt correctly too
> 
> See the attached output, I'm not sure if I should open a new bug or
> this behaviour is by design
> 
> After upgrading cupt with aptitude, cupt upgrade want to remove many
> pakages when I full-upgrade, but dist-upgrade from apt is sane.
[...]

Cupt never (modulo possible bugs) autoremoves packages which are
used, as in, either marked as manually installed or (directly or
indirectly) required by some another used package.

If Cupt sees some package as not needed, that means it is marked as
automatically installed and it's not required for any other packages.

Cupt tries hard to keep the system clean from unneeded packages and uses
a different and more aggressive algorithm than other package managers to
find such packages, that's why sometimes it suggests more packages for
autoremoval than other package managers. It's not a bug.

To ensure that Cupt (and other package managers including e.g. APT) get
the precise data regarding what packages are wanted by user, you should
check the respective lists [1] and modify them if needed. All packages
you (as user) need should be marked as manually installed.

In your case, it will be like

$ cupt unmarkauto gdm3 <...other packages as needed...>


[1]
http://people.debian.org/~jackyf/cupt2/tutorial.html#automatically_installed_packages

-- 
Eugene V. Lyubimkin aka JackYF, JID: jackyf.devel(maildog)gmail.com
C++ GNU/Linux userspace developer, Debian Developer