[Bug 2100937] Re: apt install --mark-auto does not retain auto mark

[Julian Andres Klode]

The behavior displayed in the bug report matches the description in the
manual page quoted in comment 4, notably:

> mark all freshly installed packages as automatically installed

As such, the --mark-auto option does not affect packages which are
already installed, and they are subject to the usual rules:

If an upgrade is available, it is installed and the state is unchanged.
Otherwise, the state is set to manually installed.

Personally I'm not convinced that the state change is correct in any
case, but there's arguments for both sides. In particular I am worried
that users accidentally end up marking a lot of packages as manually
installed that they did not intend to.

Whether the mark-auto flag should apply to already installed arguments
is a topic that I have not formed an opinion on so far. Needless to say
changing an installed package from manual to auto because you pass it to
--mark-auto is not going to be the right call in most places, and we're
talking really about the issue entirely independent of mark-auto.

** Changed in: apt (Ubuntu)
   Importance: Undecided => Wishlist

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2100937

Title:
  apt install --mark-auto does not retain auto mark

Status in apt package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  e.g.

  1) sudo apt install ppa-purge
  2) sudo apt-mark auto ppa-purge
  3) sudo apt install --mark-auto ppa-purge

  Expected result:
  ppa-purge is marked as auto
  What happend:
  ppa-purge is marked as manual

  If line (2) is omitted, I think the result should be manual, even if
  it is unintuitive. At least I need a way to retain the auto/manual
  status when I install a package (without --reinstall) a version of
  which is already installed no matter which auto/manual status the
  previously installed package has. i.e. I want an option to retain the
  auto/manual status of the old package when I use "apt install
  pkg/target_release", because I want auto-removing work as expected
  thereafter. It is debatable what should the status be, if there was no
  package installed before.

  BTW ppa-purge relies on "apt install" marking packages with the right
  auto status, but it doesn't seem to work now. We need clear
  documentation about when auto status is changed.

  See also https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/786177/111181

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 24.04
  Package: apt 2.7.14build2
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 6.8.0-54.56-generic 6.8.12
  Uname: Linux 6.8.0-54-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.28.1-0ubuntu3.3
  Architecture: amd64
  CasperMD5CheckResult: unknown
  CurrentDesktop: XFCE
  Date: Wed Mar  5 13:03:48 2025
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-12-05 (1917 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 19.10 "Eoan Ermine" - Release amd64 (20191017)
  SourcePackage: apt
  UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to noble on 2025-01-12 (52 days ago)

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