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According to aptitude, the ubuntu-mate-desktop and ubuntu-mate-core packages recommend the ntp package, which conflicts with the openntpd package that we use. Interactively, it's easy to ask aptitude to leave openntpd alone and not install ntp. However, because I don't want to have to install MATE interactively after each reinstall of this server, I would like to know if it's possibly to encourage/discourage a given solution non-interactively using only command-line arguments to aptitude.

XtraSimplicity
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BigSmoke
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  • I'm not overly familiar with this issue, but would the answer to this question help? It would require a little scripting, though. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14392525/passing-arguments-to-an-interactive-program-non-interactively – XtraSimplicity Jan 03 '17 at 06:29
  • I like the idea, @XtraSimplicity, but since the solutions proposed by `aptitude` are numbered I'm afraid that, at a future invocation of the script, the right solution may have a different number. – BigSmoke Jan 03 '17 at 08:15
  • @XtraSimplicity, I'm using 16.10 in fact. I wasn't allowed to tag my question as such, because I'm of low reputation. But, of course, regardless of this perhaps being a problem specific to 16.10 and regardless of me perhaps chosing to get rid of openntp, the generic question remains. :) – BigSmoke Jan 03 '17 at 10:13
  • ahhh; I've submitted an edit for peer review -- I can't add the tag either, unfortunately (not enough rep on SF), with an updated title. I'm currently having a play around with this on a vagrant box. If I find a solution that works for me, I'll post it here. :) – XtraSimplicity Jan 03 '17 at 10:16
  • I deleted my comment before, as I realised that I messed something up.. So, I reinstalled the openntpd and ubuntu-mate packages, and can confirm that ntp has *not* been installed. :) The commands I executed (after installing openntpd using `apt-get install openntpd` (I'm an apt user, rather than aptitude)) along with the output I received are shown [here](http://pastebin.com/KXgmVCjt). A summary of the installed packages can be seen [here](http://pastebin.com/PEhh3qH6). – XtraSimplicity Jan 03 '17 at 10:52
  • For the most part, I followed [this](http://tipsonubuntu.com/2016/09/23/install-mate-desktop-1-16-ubuntu-16-04/) tutorial (i.e. I used the PPAs mentioned in that link), but installed the `ubuntu-mate-desktop` and `ubuntu-mate-core` packages as you would usually. – XtraSimplicity Jan 03 '17 at 10:55

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When you say 'recommends', does this help:

--with(out)-recommends Specify whether or not to treat recommends as
                       strong dependencies.
Halfgaar
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  • Thanks, @Halfgaar. I didn't know that option. But, the downside to that is that it'll skip *a lot* of recommended packages, so that `aptitude` will end up installing 67 instead of 245 packages. :-/ – BigSmoke Jan 03 '17 at 09:58