automatic autoremoval is a difficult topic with a lot of things to
consider:
* autoremoval is not safe to do. Users often end up removing a lot of
stuff they don't want to remove. So this needs careful checking.
(dist-)Upgrades already have long output and people miss removals
already, adding automatic removals makes them even more likely to miss
things.
* The packages being autoremoved are not necessarily related to the
package changes being performed at the moment. You could have removed a
package at some point and your next upgrade let's say a week later
removes all dependencies of the package - that's just seems like bad
user experience to me.
* apt upgrade is defined to not remove packages - that is, it is safe to
run with the guarantee of not losing any functionality. autoremove there
would break that promise and thus expectations. For {full,dist-upgrade}.
So, I don't think we should just switch on autoremovals by default.
We should first focus on the aspects where it really matters:
* If you install an app via gnome-software and remove it, its
dependencies should be gone too (but not other unused packages, as said
before, that would be bad UX).
* When doing release upgrades, remove all unused packages. There's a
huge amount of churn and people expect stuff to be broken / missing
after a release upgrade anyway, so there's much less frustation.
(both have their own LP bugs, but I don't know which ATM)
Also we could do that gnome-software idea of a limited autoremove and
push that to apt too and do that on remove/install/dist-upgrade.
"upgrade" really is kind of a special case, though.
--
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to apt in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1734104
Title:
'upgrade' in bionic should by default autoremove as well
Status in apt package in Ubuntu:
New
Bug description:
In bionic, apt upgrade should also autoremove by default. I have a few
bionic systems (upgrades from xenial mostly) which are not yet showing
that behaviour, it may be we haven't implemented that yet so this is
just a placeholder bug in that case :)
To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apt/+bug/1734104/+subscriptions
--
Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages
Post to : touch-packages@lists.launchpad.net
Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages
More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
