On 3/26/2018 1:55 PM, Ken Brown wrote:
> In ChooserPage::applyCommandLinePackageSelection() we have the following 
> code:
> 
>        bool wanted    = pkg.isManuallyWanted();
>        bool deleted   = pkg.isManuallyDeleted();
>        bool basemisc  = (pkg.categories.find ("Base") != 
> pkg.categories.end ()
>               || pkg.categories.find ("Orphaned") != pkg.categories.end 
> ());
> [...]
>        bool reinstall = (wanted  || basemisc) && deleted;
> 
> One strange consequence of this is that if the user tries to uninstall 
> an orphaned package on the command line, then setup will instead try to 
> reinstall it.
> 
> This behavior was introduced in the following commit:
> 
> commit a667a8b289ccb6e70ec6bf4c70cceeca4d3fb5d3
> Author: Corinna Vinschen <corinna@vinschen.de>
> Date:   Thu Jul 25 12:03:49 2013 +0000
> 
> [...]
> Uninstalled packages in categories "Base" or "Misc" are always selected 
> for installation; installed packages in these categories are not 
> eligible for deletion and will be reinstalled or upgraded instead.
> [...]
> 
> I can't understand the rationale for this.  Did "Misc" (which has since 
> been renamed to "Orphaned") used to have a different meaning?
> 
> I found it very surprising when I tried to uninstall a bunch of packages 
> in unattended mode, and setup failed with download errors because it 
> tried to reinstall orphaned packages.

Patch attached.

Ken