Removing or causing lubuntu-desktop to be removed marks packages for autoremove

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Please see the thread here for more examples: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2314397

This behaviour is perfectly normal and NOT harmful.

Normal??, Not in the least. As to harmful well probably not harmful but
it's not correct behaviour at all.

On 02/25/2016 04:20 AM, Jörn Schönyan wrote:
> This behaviour is perfectly normal and NOT harmful.
>
> ** Changed in: lubuntu-meta (Ubuntu)
> Status: Confirmed => Invalid
>

Autoremove proposes to remove lubuntu-core. Won't that be "harmful"?

lubuntu-core is another meta-package so it's removal isn't harmful per-se. However the removal of meta-packages should not cause the marking for autoremove of that meta-package's deps. Check what happens in Ubuntu if ubuntu-desktop is removed or caused to be removed, ie. nothing else is removed which is the proper behavior

On 02/25/2016 08:55 AM, Histesh Shah wrote:
> Autoremove proposes to remove lubuntu-core. Won't that be "harmful"?
>

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Possibly centered around lubuntu-core. Ex. below of what's marked for autoremove if removing a recommend of lubuntu-core, ie. the laptop-detect package
$ sudo apt-get remove laptop-detect
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  abiword abiword-common apturl apturl-common evolution-data-server-common
  gecko-mediaplayer gnome-mplayer language-selector-gnome liba52-0.7.4
  libabiword-3.0 libass4 libavresample1 libbluray1 libcamel-1.2-45
  libchamplain-0.12-0 libchamplain-gtk-0.12-0 libclutter-1.0-0
  libclutter-gtk-1.0-0 libcogl-pango15 libcogl15 libdca0 libdirectfb-1.2-9
  libdiscid0 libdvdread4 libebook-contacts-1.2-0 libedataserver-1.2-18
  libenca0 libfs6 libgbm1 libgda-5.0-4 libgda-5.0-common libglu1-mesa
  libgmlib1 libgmtk1 libgmtk1-data libgpod4 libical1 libjs-jquery
  libloudmouth1-0 liblua5.2-0 libmad0 libmhash2 libmusicbrainz3-6 libots0
  libpostproc52 libquvi-scripts libquvi7 libraptor2-0 librasqal3 librdf0
  libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0 libts-0.0-0 libvdpau1 libwmf0.2-7
  libwpd-0.9-9 libwpg-0.2-2 libwps-0.2-2 libwv-1.2-4 libyajl2
  lubuntu-icon-theme mplayer2 policykit-desktop-privileges tsconf
  ttf-ubuntu-font-family x11-apps x11-session-utils x11-xfs-utils xinit xorg
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  laptop-detect lubuntu-core lubuntu-default-session lubuntu-default-settings
  lubuntu-desktop lubuntu-live-settings lxinput lxsession ubiquity
  ubiquity-casper ubiquity-frontend-gtk
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 11 to remove and 15 not upgraded.
After this operation, 19.0 MB disk space will be freed.

APT does not mark the deps of packages in metapackage section as automatically installed, so it's not our fault.

"it's not our fault."

Consider unbundling lubuntu-desktop from packages that are not inherently part of a desktop installation such as libreoffice, trojita, transmission, quassel. You can install these through a different meta-package. Really annoying that I can't uninstall a bittorrent client without breaking the package management process.

It's perfectly fine to remove such packages, but it will remove the metapackage. Removing the metapackage by removing a dependency of it will however not remove the packages it depends on, or mark them for automatic removal.

For example, compare removing ubuntu-standard with removing lshw in xenial: The first case marks the packages as autoremovable, the second does not.

root@xenial:~# apt remove ubuntu-standard
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  accountsservice apt-transport-https bind9-host command-not-found command-not-found-data dmidecode dnsutils friendly-recovery ftp geoip-database hdparm info iputils-tracepath irqbalance language-selector-common libaccountsservice0 libbind9-140 libdns162 libgeoip1 libisc160
  libisccc140 libisccfg140 liblwres141 libnuma1 libpcap0.8 libusb-1.0-0 lshw lsof ltrace mtr-tiny nano ntfs-3g popularity-contest powermgmt-base python3-commandnotfound python3-gdbm tcpdump telnet time usbutils
Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  ubuntu-standard
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 70 not upgraded.
After this operation, 46.1 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] ^C
root@xenial:~# apt remove lshw
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  lshw ubuntu-standard
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 69 not upgraded.
After this operation, 706 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] ^C

This bug has been reported against trusty, where behavior is different: Packages are not marked as automatically installed when installed due to a dependency from a metapackage. It's highly likely the systems affected where misconfigured, as the packages could not have been shown for autoremoval if they were manually installed in the first place.

In any case, as mentioned before, not apt's fault, and hence its task was closed. The lubuntu-meta task is still open and I did not comment on that.

Lubuntu's metapackages depend on the behavior that Julian describes, so this *is* normal and will not be changing.