#1109196 apt: provide a way to automatically mark 'auto' all packages that don't need to stay manual

Package:
apt
Source:
apt
Description:
commandline package manager
Submitter:
Lucas Nussbaum
Date:
2025-07-18 13:25:03 UTC
Severity:
normal
Tags:
#1109196#5
Date:
2025-07-13 09:49:29 UTC
From:
To:
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

#1109196#10
Date:
2025-07-18 13:24:13 UTC
From:
To:
A merge request to integrate this into apt-mark:
https://salsa.debian.org/apt-team/apt/-/merge_requests/502

Lucas