As soon as I sent my last post, I realized that I had the answer,
already.  I am aware that aptitude can be used in TUI mode, but I prefer
to use the command line for apt and its cousins.

This is going to be a tedious process, but putting it off will only make
it worse.


Marc


On 11/19/23 13:23, morus via Dng wrote:
>> According to aptitude, I have 443 auto-installed packages that are unused
>> that it wants to uninstall.  All but 30+ of these are libs and python
>> packages.
>> ...
>> What about thunderbird.  I never installed a Debian/Devuan version of
>> thunderbird, so I can't use the same method as with firefox?  Is there a
>> list of required/recommended packages anywhere?
> You can run `aptitude show thunderbird` to inspect the package,
> it'll list all related ones.
>
> I'm guessing you're also not aware you can run `aptitude` with
> no arguments, and then it's a TUI program. It's very useful for
> inspecting packages, and will tell you why they're marked for
> removal or installation. In situations like yours, I often use it to
> interactively inspect dependencies of program's package in the repo
> and mark whatever seems important for manual installation.
>
> Looking for info on dependencies wherever you got the program is also
> a good idea.
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