How can I determine why apt-get will install a package?

Solution 1:

What you really seem to be asking is "How do I diagram dependencies?" so you can see which packages pull in which dependencies.

You get both text and diagrammed dependencies from the apt-cache command (included in the apt package, part of the default install).

Here's an example of apt-cache for listing dependencies of the 'hello' package in text format. Text output will always be only one level.

$ apt-cache depends hello
hello
  Depends: libc6
 |Depends: dpkg
  Depends: install-info

You can read the diagram using any dotfile viewer, such as dotty (included in the graphviz package, also part of the default install)

Here's an example of getting the full dependency tree in graphical format, then displaying it. Graphical output will always be the full tree.

$ apt-cache dotty hello > dotfile
$ dotty dotfile

Looking it over, you can see that the 'hello' package pulls in a ton of Perl packages...and which dependency does it.

Solution 2:

apt-rdepends does this, without installing 50+ libraries of cruft like ubuntu-dev-tools.

durr@scraper:~$ apt-rdepends mercurial
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
mercurial
  Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14)
  Depends: mercurial-common (= 2.8.2-1ubuntu1)
  Depends: python (<< 2.8)
  Depends: ucf (>= 2.0020)
libc6
  Depends: libgcc1
libgcc1
  Depends: gcc-4.9-base (= 4.9-20140406-0ubuntu1)
  Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14)
  PreDepends: multiarch-support
gcc-4.9-base
multiarch-support
  Depends: libc6 (>= 2.3.6-2)
mercurial-common
  Depends: python (<< 2.8)
  Depends: python:any (>= 2.7.1-0ubuntu2)
python
  Depends: libpython-stdlib (= 2.7.5-5ubuntu3)
  Depends: python-minimal (= 2.7.5-5ubuntu3)
  Depends: python2.7 (>= 2.7.5-1~)
libpython-stdlib
  Depends: libpython2.7-stdlib (>= 2.7.5-1~)
libpython2.7-stdlib
  Depends: libbz2-1.0
  Depends: libc6 (>= 2.15)
  Depends: libdb5.3
  Depends: libexpat1 (>= 2.1~beta3)
  Depends: libffi6 (>= 3.0.4)
  Depends: libncursesw5 (>= 5.6+20070908)
  Depends: libpython2.7-minimal (= 2.7.6-8)
  Depends: libreadline6 (>= 6.0)
  Depends: libsqlite3-0 (>= 3.5.9)
  Depends: libssl1.0.0 (>= 1.0.0)
  Depends: libtinfo5
  Depends: mime-support
libbz2-1.0
  Depends: libc6 (>= 2.4)
  PreDepends: multiarch-support
libdb5.3
  Depends: libc6 (>= 2.17)
  PreDepends: multiarch-support
libexpat1
  Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14)
  PreDepends: multiarch-support
libffi6
  Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14)
  PreDepends: multiarch-support
libncursesw5
  Depends: libc6 (>= 2.15)
  Depends: libtinfo5 (= 5.9+20140118-1ubuntu1)
  PreDepends: multiarch-support
libtinfo5
  Depends: libc6 (>= 2.15)
  PreDepends: multiarch-support
libpython2.7-minimal
libreadline6
  Depends: libc6 (>= 2.15)
  Depends: libtinfo5
  Depends: readline-common
  PreDepends: multiarch-support
readline-common
  Depends: dpkg (>= 1.15.4)
  Depends: install-info
dpkg
  PreDepends: libbz2-1.0
  PreDepends: libc6 (>= 2.14)
  PreDepends: liblzma5 (>= 5.1.1alpha+20120614)
  PreDepends: libselinux1 (>= 2.1.0)
  PreDepends: tar (>= 1.23)
  PreDepends: zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4)
liblzma5
  Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14)
  PreDepends: multiarch-support
libselinux1
  Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14)
  Depends: libpcre3
  PreDepends: multiarch-support
libpcre3
  Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14)
  PreDepends: multiarch-support
tar
  PreDepends: libacl1 (>= 2.2.51-8)
  PreDepends: libc6 (>= 2.17)
  PreDepends: libselinux1 (>= 1.32)
libacl1
  Depends: libattr1 (>= 1:2.4.46-8)
  Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14)
  PreDepends: multiarch-support
libattr1
  Depends: libc6 (>= 2.4)
  PreDepends: multiarch-support
zlib1g
  Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14)
  PreDepends: multiarch-support
install-info
  Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14)
  PreDepends: dpkg (>= 1.16.1)
libsqlite3-0
  Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14)
  PreDepends: multiarch-support
libssl1.0.0
  Depends: debconf (>= 0.5)
  Depends: debconf-2.0
  Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14)
  PreDepends: multiarch-support
debconf
  PreDepends: perl-base (>= 5.6.1-4)
perl-base
  PreDepends: dpkg (>= 1.14.20)
  PreDepends: libc6 (>= 2.14)
debconf-2.0
mime-support
python-minimal
  Depends: dpkg (>= 1.13.20)
  Depends: python2.7-minimal (>= 2.7.5-1~)
python2.7-minimal
  Depends: libpython2.7-minimal (= 2.7.6-8)
  Depends: zlib1g (>= 1:1.2.0)
  PreDepends: libc6 (>= 2.15)
python2.7
  Depends: libpython2.7-stdlib (= 2.7.6-8)
  Depends: mime-support
  Depends: python2.7-minimal (= 2.7.6-8)
python:any
ucf
  Depends: coreutils (>= 5.91)
  Depends: debconf (>= 1.5.19)
coreutils
  PreDepends: libacl1 (>= 2.2.51-8)
  PreDepends: libattr1 (>= 1:2.4.46-8)
  PreDepends: libc6 (>= 2.17)
  PreDepends: libselinux1 (>= 1.32)

On my clean ubuntu server install, apt-rdepends only required libapt-pkg-perl for installation. It's much lighter then ubuntu-dev-tools, and yet is still recursive, so you get all the dependencies, rather then just the first-order dependencies, like apt-cache depends returns.