How does apt-get autoremove work when given a package as an argument?

roms

1/22/23, 2:39 PM

I recently logged onto a shared server to see why I couldn't access a samba share. I tried to open smb.conf with vim and found out that vim wasn't installed anymore. I found out that my Samba share was inaccessible because samba was also no longer installed.

I looked in apt's logs and saw the timestamp by when Samba was removed and looked in auth.log and found this line right around that time:

COMMAND=/usr/bin/apt-get autoremove libpython3.8-stdlib

Every example I can find of apt/apt-get autoremove shows it invoked with no argument. What happens when you give it a package? Does this explicitly remove that package and all its cascading dependencies? This is the only explanation I can think of that would explain why samba and vim would be uninstalled.

247

0 + 0

package-management

apt

Score:7

Ubuntu

Artur Meinild

1/22/23, 2:48 PM

You are (almost) correct in your assumption. Running apt-get autoremove <package> will first remove <package>, and then autoremove as if you had run apt-get autoremove with no parameters (i.e. removing all "automatically installed" packages that are not a dependency of any "manually installed" packages).

The important distinction here is that the autoremove part of running apt-get autoremove <package> will remove not only packages that are a dependency of <package>, but all packages that would otherwise be autoremoved.

0 + 0

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: How does apt-get autoremove work when given a package as an argument?

TH: apt-get autoremove ทำงานอย่างไรเมื่อกำหนดแพ็คเกจเป็นอาร์กิวเมนต์

RO: Cum funcționează apt-get autoremove atunci când este dat un pachet ca argument?

RU: Как работает автоматическое удаление apt-get, если в качестве аргумента указан пакет?

VI: apt-get autoremove hoạt động như thế nào khi được cung cấp một gói làm đối số?

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