In the manual page it also says that "This is equally to running apt- mark auto for all installed packages." It is unclear from the wording if it means all freshly installed packages (meaning here the packages no version of which were installed before) or also packages that were upgraded/downgraded or even all packages that were ordered for installation in the command line and their dependencies.
Even if the auto-state is unchanged with --mark-auto when upgrading, it might not be unchanged without --mark-auto, if the package is upgraded and the package does not have a reserve dependency installed. (The output does not show the difference, though, at least for apt 2.7.14) So the usual rule is not that simple. I wonder in which case user would want to have such a package marked as auto, though. I have a script by which I want to downgrade packages matching current software source settings, and I want to protect a package from being marked manual without a reason when possibly downgrading the package and possibly retaining the version of it. Currently I do the protection so that I inspect the output for lines like "<pkg name> set to manually installed." of the apt install command and run apt-mark auto for those packages thereafter. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2100937 Title: apt install --mark-auto does not retain auto mark To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apt/+bug/2100937/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
