Seemingly impossibly, I found a bug in APT... it's just a spelling error (I think... it might be a textual truncation error), but still...
Try this:
sudo apt purge -s i965-va-driver
That tells APT to simulate (via the -s flag) purging a package, it doesn't actually remove anything, it just gives a printout of what would be removed.
sudo apt purge -s i965-va-driver
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
i965-va-driver-shaders
The following packages will be REMOVED:
i965-va-driver* va-driver-all*
The following NEW packages will be installed:
i965-va-driver-shaders
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 2 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Purg va-driver-all [2.7.0-2]
Purg i965-va-driver [2.4.0-0ubuntu1]
Inst i965-va-driver-shaders (2.4.0-1build1 Ubuntu:20.04/focal [amd64])
Conf i965-va-driver-shaders (2.4.0-1build1 Ubuntu:20.04/focal [amd64])
See the last 4 lines? How the first words of each of those lines are truncated to only 4 characters? That's the bug.
"install", "purge", "configure", etc are Desired Outcomes whereas "inst', "purg", "conf" are Status of package.
You will rarely see the Package Status verbose during routine removal or installations. But they will be displayed during a Simulation, since the Package Status then becomes relevant to the user. But there needs to be a separate word for them.
So the words are just shortened versions of themselves when used for status. Still human readable, but different for the computer.
Because the above relates to dpkg in actuality, not APT.
The definitions above fall under represented dpkg operations which you can search in man dpkg:
Simulated runs print out a series of lines, each representing a dpkg operation:
configure (Conf), remove (Remv) or unpack (Inst). Square brackets indicate broken
packages, and empty square brackets indicate breaks that are of no consequence (rare).
