Re: Installing from scratch with debs

[Gordon Sadler <gbsadler1@lcisp.com>]

On Sun, Mar 11, 2001 at 11:14:51AM -0800, Zack Weinberg wrote:
<SNIP>
> 
> I ran this script for all the Essential packages and the transitive
> closure of their dependencies.  In case you're curious, these are all
> the packages which are not Essential but included in the transitive
> closure:
> 
>  libc6
>  libcap1
>  libdb2
>  libncurses5
>  libpam-modules
>  libpam-runtime
>  libpam0g
>  libreadline4
>  libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2
>  mawk
> 
> I'm not sure why base-files wants awk.
>
Not trying to degrade any of your information here. The above packages
are all listed as required however.

Debian-policy 2.2 (ver 3.5.2.0)

required
          required packages are necessary for the proper functioning of
          the system. You must not remove these packages or
          your system may become totally broken and you may
          not even be able to use dpkg to put things back.
          Systems with only the required packages are probably
          unusable, but they do have enough functionality to allow the sysadmin
          to boot and install more software.
          
I'm not 100% clear why Debian has Priority: required ... and
Essential: yes, seems there is probably a historical reason. It would
probably be less confusing/complex to use just one to designate both.
KISS principle and all.

Gordon Sadler