Hello, Thanks for your help and time. I really appreciate it.
> Sent: Friday, May 28, 2021 at 8:06 PM > From: "Greg Wooledge" <g...@wooledge.org> > To: debian-user@lists.debian.org > Subject: Re: How do I permanently disable unattended downloads of > software/security updates? > > More likely, it was brought in as a recommendation by some desktop > environment. One may use "aptitude why unattended-upgrades" to find > out why it was installed, or more properly, why it's not being marked > for autoremoval at the current moment. I'm very certain that I didn't install it manually. In fact, during installation of Debian, I specifically chose the option to not upgrade/update software automatically. The package "unattended-upgrades" might have been installed automatically because I installed a minimal Gnome desktop environment (I quite like using Gnome.) Question: Instead of using "aptitude why unattended-upgrades" command, can I use "apt why unattended-upgrades"? I was told many years ago that the command "aptitude" was deprecated. > However, if the package is marked as a *dependency* of some desktop > environment, rather than simply a recommendation, then purging the > undesired package may also try to remove the desktop environment > metapackage. And some people panic when that happens, because they > don't understand that a metapackage is not critically important. Question: What command can I type in a terminal to find out if the package "unattended-upgrades" is a *dependency* of some other packages? Yeah, I do panic when any metapackage of my Gnome desktop environment is removed. Why? My knowledge of computing and Debian is elementary. Question: What do you mean by "a metapackage is not critically important"? Would you like to elaborate please? > > (And then it gets even more complicated when you consider autoremove, > because removing the placeholder metapackage may free up various other > pieces of the desktop environment -- ones that actually *do* something -- > to be marked for autoremoval. And that's not desired.) Thanks for your explanation. > > (Personally I solve all of that by disabling autoremoval. But that's > just me, and most people seem to like it.) I wish to improve my knowledge of computing. How do I disable autoremove? What is the command to be typed in a terminal?
