On Fri, Mar 07, 2025 at 08:31:46PM +0100, Michael Biebl wrote:
> Package: apt
> Version: 2.9.31
> Severity: wishlist
>
>
> Hi,
>
> this bug report was triggered by
> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1099706#20
>
> It appears, that when moving functionality from one package
> (old_package) to another package (new_package) a lot of maintainers
> update their dependencies like this (a/):
>
> Depends/Recommends/Suggests: new_package | old_package
>
> Now, if I install new_package, "apt autoremove" will not consider the
> removal of old_package even though there is no reason anymore to keep
> this package installed.
Yes this is very much intentional. Let's take a different example:
foo: Depends: database-backend-a | database-backend-b
You have installed foo and configured it to use the b backend, because
back in the day it was the default.
Now you install bar
bar: Depends: database-backend-a
Removing database-backend-b would break foo.
Now, my new solver implements the behavior you are after in the 3.1
level, so apt autoremove --solver 3.1 will only consider the "best"
choices (usually the most left one, unless something else picked
another one earlier).
Given the drastic shift in behavior it's not clear whether this
can become the default or whether we should stick to a safe
autoremoval code, and hide this in autoremove --deep/--strong/idk.
An argument can be made that given a depends with multiple solutions,
we should not follow ones in "oldlibs" if there are others, I'll leave
that thought for further consideration.
--
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