I performed an upgrade of Ubuntu 17.10 to Ubuntu 18.04 and ran "dpkg -l | grep '^rc'" after purging packages and kind of captured the difference in that with -proposed no packages were left in an rc state.
$ cat artful-nopurge.txt rc gnome-orca 3.28.0-3ubuntu1 all Scriptable screen reader - transitional package rc libunistring0:amd64 0.9.3-5.2ubuntu1 amd64 Unicode string library for C rc linux-image-4.13.0-16-generic 4.13.0-16.19 amd64 Linux kernel image for version 4.13.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP rc linux-image-4.13.0-21-generic 4.13.0-21.24 amd64 Linux kernel image for version 4.13.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP rc linux-image-4.13.0-41-generic 4.13.0-41.46 amd64 Linux kernel image for version 4.13.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP rc linux-image-4.13.0-43-generic 4.13.0-43.48 amd64 Linux kernel image for version 4.13.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP rc linux-image-extra-4.13.0-16-generic 4.13.0-16.19 amd64 Linux kernel extra modules for version 4.13.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP rc linux-image-extra-4.13.0-21-generic 4.13.0-21.24 amd64 Linux kernel extra modules for version 4.13.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP rc linux-image-extra-4.13.0-41-generic 4.13.0-41.46 amd64 Linux kernel extra modules for version 4.13.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP rc linux-image-extra-4.13.0-43-generic 4.13.0-43.48 amd64 Linux kernel extra modules for version 4.13.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP rc python 2.7.15~rc1-1 amd64 interactive high-level object-oriented language (default version) rc python2.7-minimal 2.7.15~rc1-1 amd64 Minimal subset of the Python language (version 2.7) rc snapd-login-service 1.23-0ubuntu1 amd64 Daemon to allow non-root access to snapd bdmurray@clean-artful-amd64:~$ grep "upgrader version" /var/log/dist-upgrade/main.log 2018-07-11 14:09:34,978 INFO release-upgrader version '18.04.20' started bdmurray@clean-artful-amd64:~$ dpkg -l | grep "^rc" bdmurray@clean-artful-amd64:~$ cat /etc/lsb-release DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu DISTRIB_RELEASE=18.04 ** Tags removed: verification-needed verification-needed-bionic ** Tags added: verification-done verification-done-bionic -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1775660 Title: ubuntu-release-upgrader should purge obsolete packages, not just remove them To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-release-upgrader/+bug/1775660/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs