Nasty problem with ubuntu-mate-desktop, ubuntu-mate-core, etc dependency

Support & Help Requests
,
8

I'm at a bit of a loss, I had thought of a possible reason, but I can't re-produce it in the live session as a test. :confused:

Meta packages are "removed" automatically when you remove a package that's "on the list", like HexChat and Pidgin (default Ubuntu MATE apps - ubuntu-mate-desktop). This doesn't break the system at all.

sudo apt remove hexchat

The following packages will be REMOVED:
  hexchat ubuntu-mate-desktop

autoremove does not have anything to remove.

I tried to explicitly remove/purge ubuntu-mate-desktop, but autoremove does not try to remove other packages with the system.

To answer your question @Staynluss:

  • IIf I install one of the meta packages, it'll install the packages that are "missing" in that "list".
  • The workaround I suggested is before you run autoremove, it's like manually installing them, despite they're already installed. I found this to work when autoremove planned to remove that package.

Here's a topic with clarification on "meta packages":

Please tell us which packages autoremove wants to remove and we'll confirm if they're part of our system or just no longer needed.

2 Likes