How to remove package from apt-get autoremove "queue"

Question

I just installed Calibre for ebook management via apt-get on Ubuntu 10.04, however I found out that it's one major version behind the current release, so I decided to reinstall it directly from sources.

When I uninstalled the packaged version, apt added bunch of dependencies to the autoremove queue, and as I installed newer version of Calibre from sources, it has no knowledge of it being dependent on those packages.

Now I basically have all libraries that I want, but they are still in the autoremove queue.

The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libqt4-script libqt4-designer libqt4-dbus python-lxml python-cherrypy3
  python-encutils libqt4-xmlpatterns libqt4-help python-qt4 python-clientform
  python-sip python-django python-mechanize libqt4-svg python-django-tagging
  libphonon4 libqt4-xml libqt4-assistant libqt4-webkit libqt4-scripttools
  python-beautifulsoup python-pypdf python-dateutil python-cssutils
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.

How do I tell apt that I want to keep these packages installed, without reinstalling them manually?

Answer 1

Just use apt-get install:

sudo apt-get install libqt4-script libqt4-designer libqt4-dbus python-lxml python-cherrypy3 python-encutils libqt4-xmlpatterns libqt4-help python-qt4 python-clientform python-sip python-django python-mechanize libqt4-svg python-django-tagging   libphonon4 libqt4-xml libqt4-assistant libqt4-webkit libqt4-scripttools  python-beautifulsoup python-pypdf python-dateutil python-cssutils

It won't actually install them. It will just set the flag to manually installed.

Answer 2

Apt-get knows the packages were installed automatically as dependencies. You should mark them as 'manual' to let apt-get know you want them to remain installed:

apt-mark manual [packages]

Answer 3

If I understood you well, you wan to mark these packages to appear as if they were installed manually. Apt-get does not allow you to do this. However, aptitude allows the manipulation of these flags.

Have a look at this post. Some people discourage the mix of using apt-get and aptitude. So, be careful!