[Bug 1725861] Re: APT::AutoRemove::SuggestsImportant "false" should be the default

[Julian Andres Klode]

Unsupported and no longer available packages can be dealt with better by
extending u-r-u, for example. They are not a valid argument for
autoremoving packages still suggested by other packages.

As I mentioned before, it seems reasonable to me that u-r-u would
autoremove more than apt by setting SuggestsImportant to false. That
solves (well, it improves, it's not an optimal solution) the problem of
accumulated cruft during dist upgrades while at the same time not
affecting operation on a running system.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1725861

Title:
  APT::AutoRemove::SuggestsImportant "false" should be the default

Status in apt package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged
Status in apt source package in Bionic:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  After an upgrade to 17.10, I took a look at how much cruft I had
  accumulated on my system, and started marking various packages 'auto'
  which I know I don't care about keeping installed.

  apt autoremove didn't remove nearly as much stuff as I expected, and
  as I dug down into some of them I found that a number of them were
  being kept because other packages on the system have Suggests:
  referencing them.

  This is asymmetric and wrong.  If Suggested packages are not
  automatically installed by default, then a Suggests should also not
  prevent a package from being automatically removed.

  After a web search led me to 'https://askubuntu.com/questions/351085
  /how-to-remove-recommended-and-suggested-dependencies-of-uninstalled-
  packages', I set 'APT::AutoRemove::SuggestsImportant "false"' in my
  apt config; apt autoremove now wants to remove 365MiB of packages from
  my system.  That is a LOT of cruft that has accumulated over the years
  of upgrades, none of which I have ever asked to be installed and all
  of which were universe or no-longer-available packages.

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