Bug#543256: Make installing recommends optional
On Wednesday 26 August 2009, Frans Pop wrote:
> On Wednesday 26 August 2009, Gaudenz Steinlin wrote:
> > Shouldn't they actually be Depends if they are really required for a
> > working system? I don't see why you want to special case some
> > packages.
>
> You'd have to take that up with the maintainers of the packages. But
> for the two cases I mentioned there's already been *loads* of
> discussion.
I've been wondering whether we don't need a new field to express such
relationships. Something like "Soft-Depends:". That would be treated as
depends, but can be unselected manually or uninstalled later if a user
really, really wants to.
IMO Recommends does not fit that description as a lot of packages do fit
the "should normally be installed together with" criterion, but where
more critical users don't see any need to install it.
The gap between Suggests and Depends is in practice proving to be just too
big to be filled by a single field.
It would also allow something like debian-cd to include it on CD images
before Recommends.
Main downside of course is that it is yet another control field, as if we
don't have enough of those already.
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