auto vs user installed

[Rick Pasotto]

Aptitude marks some packages with '{a}' meaning automatically (or is it
aptitude?) installed and some with '{u}' meaning user installed.

Is it the case that some packages that were in fact automatically
installed are marked as user installed because they were installed
before aptitude started recording that info?

I'm seeing some packages marked '{u}' that I'm sure I never would have
asked for on my own.

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        -- Friedrich Hayek
    Rick Pasotto    rick@...    http://www.niof.net


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[Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.-3]

On Monday 09 November 2009 10:37:29 Rick Pasotto wrote:
> Aptitude marks some packages with '{a}' meaning automatically (or is it
> aptitude?) installed

It is automatically installed.  While much of the software installation
process is always automated, this flag indicates that the package manager
pulled this software in as a dependency of some other software rather than
because the user specifically requested this.

> and some with '{u}' meaning user installed.

No.  '{u}' indicates that the package is "unused".  This means that the
package is both automatically installed, and there is currently no package
that depends on it installed.

Both apt-get and aptitude have a mode that removes all unused packages.  I
thought aptitude's default behavior was to remove these as well.
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[Rick Pasotto]

On Mon, Nov 09, 2009 at 11:13:45AM -0600, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:
> On Monday 09 November 2009 10:37:29 Rick Pasotto wrote:
>
> > and some with '{u}' meaning user installed.
>
> No.  '{u}' indicates that the package is "unused".  This means that the
> package is both automatically installed, and there is currently no package
> that depends on it installed.

Ah! Thanks for correcting my confusion.

> Both apt-get and aptitude have a mode that removes all unused packages.  I
> thought aptitude's default behavior was to remove these as well.

I suspect they *become* unused as other packages are upgraded.

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 through them."  -- Henry David Thoreau
    Rick Pasotto    rick@...    http://www.niof.net


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