Re:Debian/Apt problem [Re:I can try...] (Score 1)

Well, I'd hope that, if there was a flag that set whether a package was installed merely to fulfill dependancies, there would be a way to, after installation, remove that flag if needed.

That way, if you linked against the library yourself, you could easily go remove that flag (thereby preventing that package from ever being removed).

It'd be up to you to go remove that flag if you were going to link against that library, but, as I see it, anyone who is going to be linking against a library themselves would have the know-how to be able to do that. It seems more reasonable to force people to say "Yes, I want to use this package" than to force people to go and remove the unused ones by hand.