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Re: [RFC] Allow to force or skip Recommends with apt-install



On Tuesday 02 February 2010, Frans Pop wrote:
> I've looked at the consequences of this and things are quite complex.
> IMO our main goal must be to have installations be as consistent as
> possible.
[...]
> The alternative would be to go back to always installing without
> Recommends.

I've been thinking this over some more and given the exceptions that would 
be needed for boot related packages installed during base-installer, I 
think that it makes most sense to change how we set using recommends or 
not.

- debootstrap effectively installs packages without Recommends

- after that initially configure APT to not use Recommends
  This means that any packages queued early will be installed without
  Recommends and effectively solves the problems with the boot related
  packages. And it's still possible to install packages with Recommends
  by explicitly calling apt-setup --with-recommends. 

- at the end of base-installer, reconfigure APT to match the debconf
  setting for installing Recommends
  So anything installed after that will get installed according to the
  debconf setting, unless apt-setup is explicitly called with either
  --with-recommends or --no-recommends.

I think with that setup the separation is much clearer than it currently is 
and that we'll need less exceptions. It's also a fairly natural separation 
as it makes things consistent for the whole base system.

Thoughts?


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