Use mk-build-deps instead of apt-get build-dep

If you are building a package from source on Debian or Ubuntu, usually the first step is to install the build-dependencies of the package. This is usually done with one of two commands:

$ sudo apt-get build-dep PKGNAME

or

$ sudo aptitude build-dep PKGNAME

The problem is that there is no easy way to undo or revert the installation of the build dependencies. All the installed packages are marked as manually installed, so later one cannot simply expect to “autoremove” those packages. Webupd8 suggests clever one-liner that tries to parse the build dependencies out of apt-cache and mark them as automatically installed. However, as mentioned in the comments, it may be too liberal in marking packages as automatically installed, and hence remove too many packages.

The real solution is mk-build-deps. First you have to install it:

$ sudo apt install devscripts

Now, instead of using apt-get or aptitude directly to install the build-dependencies, use mk-build-deps.

$ mk-build-deps PKGNAME --install --root-cmd sudo --remove

mk-build-deps will create a new package, called PKGNAME-build-deps, which depends on all the build-dependencies of PKGNAME and then install it, therefore pulling all the build-dependencies and installing them as well. As those packages are now installed as dependencies they are marked as automatically installed. Once, you no longer need the build-dependencies, you can remove the package PKGNAME-build-deps, and apt will autoremove all the build-dependencies which are no longer necessary.

Reference from here.

Ps. If we have debian/control in our project, we can use mk-build-deps to install all dependence in the control:

sudo mk-build-deps -i debian/control