Why apt-get purge wants to install packages while I use --no-download and --no-install-recommends?

Question

I am using Debian but I think this can be easily posted here.

I have already uninstalled openoffice packages from my Debian machine but somehow apt-get put abiword in his place. Now I would like to get rid of it as well but when I try to apt-get purge abiword I get this :

monkey@debVirtual:/$ sudo apt-get purge  abiword 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libgraphite3 libhyphen0 libmythes-1.2-0 libtextcat-data-utf8 openoffice.org-common openoffice.org-core openoffice.org-gnome openoffice.org-gtk openoffice.org-style-galaxy
  openoffice.org-style-tango ttf-opensymbol uno-libs3 ure xfonts-mathml
Suggested packages:
  openoffice.org-style-industrial openoffice.org-style-hicontrast openoffice.org-style-crystal openoffice.org-style-oxygen openoffice.org-evolution tango-icon-theme java5-runtime
  cli-uno-bridge otf-stix
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  abiword* abiword-plugin-grammar* abiword-plugin-mathview* gnome-office*
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libgraphite3 libhyphen0 libmythes-1.2-0 libtextcat-data-utf8 openoffice.org-common openoffice.org-core openoffice.org-gnome openoffice.org-gtk openoffice.org-style-galaxy
  openoffice.org-style-tango ttf-opensymbol uno-libs3 ure xfonts-mathml
0 upgraded, 14 newly installed, 4 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 84.4 MB of archives.
After this operation, 215 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? 

I have tried also both apt-get purge --no-download abiword abiword-common and apt-get purge --no-install-recommends abiword abiword-common but the get more or less similar output:

monkey@debVirtual:/$ sudo apt-get purge --no-download  abiword abiword-common 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libgraphite3 libhyphen0 libmythes-1.2-0 libtextcat-data-utf8 openoffice.org-common openoffice.org-core openoffice.org-gnome openoffice.org-gtk openoffice.org-style-galaxy
  openoffice.org-style-tango ttf-opensymbol uno-libs3 ure xfonts-mathml
Suggested packages:
  openoffice.org-style-industrial openoffice.org-style-hicontrast openoffice.org-style-crystal openoffice.org-style-oxygen openoffice.org-evolution tango-icon-theme java5-runtime
  cli-uno-bridge otf-stix
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  abiword* abiword-common* abiword-plugin-grammar* abiword-plugin-mathview* gnome-office*
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libgraphite3 libhyphen0 libmythes-1.2-0 libtextcat-data-utf8 openoffice.org-common openoffice.org-core openoffice.org-gnome openoffice.org-gtk openoffice.org-style-galaxy
  openoffice.org-style-tango ttf-opensymbol uno-libs3 ure xfonts-mathml
0 upgraded, 14 newly installed, 5 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 84.4 MB of archives.
After this operation, 206 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? 

Solution

I'm guessing something on your system is depending on openoffice.org | abiword.

And yes, I see that gnome does so on my system:

$ apt-cache show gnome
...
Depends: ... abiword (>= 2.8) | libreoffice-gnome ...

Comments

[Jorge Castro]

This one is probably best post one unix.stackexchange.com

[Patryk]

I have talked with guys from Debian on IRC and they sent me this link. This is a guide on how to remove gnome's reverse dependency.