Ubuntu – How to trace back which dependency chain leads to some particular package

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.

After some trial and error I found only one useful solution - we need to install normal OpenJDK 8 from previous Ubuntu 16.04 LTS manually with commands below. It is usually not recommended, but we do not have other methods with positive result.

So the commands to install are the following (we remove existing OpenJDK and then install deb-packages manually):

sudo apt purge oracle-java11-* -y
sudo apt purge *openjdk* -y
sudo apt autoremove --purge -y

wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/o/openjdk-8/openjdk-8-jre-headless_8u272-b10-0ubuntu1~16.04_amd64.deb
sudo apt install -y ./openjdk-8-jre-headless_8u222-b10-1ubuntu1~16.04.1_amd64.deb

wget http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/libp/libpng/libpng12-0_1.2.54-1ubuntu1.1_amd64.deb
sudo apt install -y ./libpng12-0_1.2.54-1ubuntu1.1_amd64.deb

wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/o/openjdk-8/openjdk-8-jre_8u272-b10-0ubuntu1~16.04_amd64.deb
sudo apt install -y ./openjdk-8-jre_8u222-b10-1ubuntu1~16.04.1_amd64.deb

wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/i/icedtea-web/icedtea-netx-common_1.6.2-3ubuntu1_all.deb
sudo apt install -y ./icedtea-netx-common_1.6.2-3ubuntu1_all.deb

wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/i/icedtea-web/icedtea-netx_1.6.2-3ubuntu1_amd64.deb
sudo apt install -y ./icedtea-netx_1.6.2-3ubuntu1_amd64.deb

Also we need to pin/hold the versions of such packages with single long command below:

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/pin-java8
Package: icedtea-netx
Pin: version 1.6.2-3ubuntu1
Pin-Priority: 1337

Package: icedtea-netx-common
Pin: version 1.6.2-3ubuntu1
Pin-Priority: 1337

Package: openjdk-8-jre
Pin: version 8u272-b10-0ubuntu1~16.04
Pin-Priority: 1337

Package: openjdk-8-jre-headless
Pin: version 8u272-b10-0ubuntu1~16.04
Pin-Priority: 1337

EOF

and then the application will run with

javaws StartProRealTime.jnlp

Notes: the installation of Oracle Java 11 or 12 does not help either.