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  • Bug#1109196: apt: provide a way to automatically mark 'auto' all packag

    From Lucas Nussbaum@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jul 13 12:00:01 2025
    Package: apt
    Version: 3.0.3
    Severity: wishlist
    Tags: patch

    Hi,

    When cleaning up cruft in a system, I used to use debfoster, which is
    nice because it allows me to get a short list of packages that are
    really the ones I want to keep, excluding all packages that are
    dependencies (or installed for other reasons).

    I understand apt-mark manual/auto is the new way to solve this, but I'm
    missing a tool that analyzes my system and provides a list of packages
    that can safely be marked 'auto'.

    'apt-mark minimize-manual' doesn't really do that, because it only looks at dependencies of meta packages.

    I wrote a POC (using AI) to demonstrate what I mean: https://salsa.debian.org/lucas/apt-suggest-auto

    But I wonder if you would consider adding similar functionality in apt
    directly (typically by replacing the current implementation in apt-mark minimize-manual, or adding another subcommand).

    Best

    Lucas

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  • From Lucas Nussbaum@21:1/5 to Lucas Nussbaum on Fri Jul 18 15:30:01 2025
    On 13/07/25 at 11:49 +0200, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
    Package: apt
    Version: 3.0.3
    Severity: wishlist
    Tags: patch

    Hi,

    When cleaning up cruft in a system, I used to use debfoster, which is
    nice because it allows me to get a short list of packages that are
    really the ones I want to keep, excluding all packages that are
    dependencies (or installed for other reasons).

    I understand apt-mark manual/auto is the new way to solve this, but I'm missing a tool that analyzes my system and provides a list of packages
    that can safely be marked 'auto'.

    'apt-mark minimize-manual' doesn't really do that, because it only looks at dependencies of meta packages.

    I wrote a POC (using AI) to demonstrate what I mean: https://salsa.debian.org/lucas/apt-suggest-auto

    But I wonder if you would consider adding similar functionality in apt directly (typically by replacing the current implementation in apt-mark minimize-manual, or adding another subcommand).

    Hi,

    A merge request to integrate this into apt-mark: https://salsa.debian.org/apt-team/apt/-/merge_requests/502

    Lucas

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    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)