Re: Complaint about apt installing Recommends by default.
On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 04:37:57PM -0400, Eric Renfro wrote:
> I'm seriously.. VERY seriously enraged by the very thought of Debian
> moving to preconfigure and install "Recommends" by default. This is
> the worst decision Debian could ever make. That very one thing is
> one of my biggest complaints about Ubuntu doing so and strongly
> /VERY/ strongly insist it not be done.
Actually, the fact that Debian has not done so for a long time in the
past was one of apt's most-reported bugs, and rightly so.
As a result of that, many packages listed in Recommends: are now more of
a "strong suggests" rather than a "weak depends", as recommends are
supposed to be; and as such, the current default behaviour is indeed not
exactly perfect.
However, given time, this will fix itself.
> I have been a Debian user since way back when, and I completely
> disagree with this decision. Recommends should NOT be treated as if
> Required, ever.
They are not.
[...]
> I will firmly say this. It is completely stupid to, by default,
> install Recommends. In the past, only Ubuntu has ever done this, and
> it is by far, one of the stupidest things they have ever done.
> Absolutely /no/ other reasonable distribution does this.
That is because no other "reasonable" distribution has a concept even
remotely similar to Recommends, since rpm does not know "suggests" or
"recommends", only "depends".
Don't lose your sleep over it.
--
The biometric identification system at the gates of the CIA headquarters
works because there's a guard with a large gun making sure no one is
trying to fool the system.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/01/biometrics.html
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