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Bug#667703: [task-desktop] Please install Synaptic Package Manager

Hi Christian,

On 2012-04-06 01:15, Christian PERRIER wrote:

Quoting Filipus Klutiero (chealer@gmail.com):


The idea of having each desktop provide its package manager was
good, but kpackage was very far from matching Synaptic. It was even
removed from KDE later, with the result that installing
task-kde-desktop no longer causes the installation of a graphical
package manager, as reported in
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=586982
There is still nothing that matches Synaptic today.

Furthermore, we now have LXDE and Xfce, which are also not
preinstalling any graphical package manager. So I think Synaptic
should be preinstalled on all DE-s... except that in Squeeze, GNOME
itself does not preinstall Synaptic. Instead, it preinstalls GNOME
PackageKit.


I agree with the idea of graphical environments to need a graphical
package manager (though, for LXDE and Xfce, one might argue that users
of these environments are probably looking for a "not-too-bloated"
environment and therefore could maybe deal with a text-based package
manager).
Hum, good point. I admit I don't remember it even crossed my mind that LXDE and Xfce would be intentionally leaving a package manager out.
I'm testing from a more or less minimal KDE environment (1489 packages installed). I usually install synaptic with --no-install-recommends, and then it's quite lightweight. synaptic itself is 6.5 MB. 

Before adding this, I'd like to get comments from other tasksel
maintainers (that would be Otavio and/or Joey).

The concern might be dependencies being pulled in by synaptic. I'm
not in position to test that but wouldn't it pull "half of GNOME" into
other graphical environments? :-). At least probably some GTK
libraries that wouldn't be pulled otherwise?


Indeed. Synaptic is more GTK+ than GNOME, although it does

Recommends: gksu | kdebase-bin | policykit-1
and gksu recommends gnome-keyring. Otherwise, it depends on GTK+ 2, but all tasks already installs that (for one thing, via Iceweasel). On my system, the only real new dependency is libvte9, just 2.5 MB. Most of the additional weight comes from recommendations:
Recommends: gksu | kdebase-bin | policykit-1, libgtk2-perl (>= 1:1.130), rarian-compat, software-properties-gtk
kde-standard depends on polkit-kde-1, which depends on policykit-1, so the first *should* not be a problem for KDE. It might be for LXDE and Xfce, however.
libgtk2-perl and its additional dependencies amount to an extra 5.5 MB. This is considerable, but I think worth it for new users. The alternative of prompting in CLI is not great and exposes http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=339556
rarian-compat only brings 0.7 MB here. I don't see much what Rarian does, and I have no idea what it's adding to Synaptic.
Finally, the most problematic is software-properties-gtk, which replaces the native dialog Synaptic offers to configure source (Settings -> Repositories). This is rarely used, but is probably quite nice when you need it (I don't know it much). That one brings in a large 8 MB, primarily due to its dependency on python-aptdaemon.gtk3widget. That causes the installation of another, GTK 3, libvte. This may be a bit less problematic if Synaptic transitions to GTK+ 3 and that newer libvte. 

In total, installing synaptic with its recommends adds an extra 23 MB here.
Trying to install task-xfce-desktop and task-lxde-desktop, I see that these apparently already bring in gksu and libvte9. So adding synaptic to task-desktop should cause task-desktop to install about 20 MB more for LXDE and Xfce. task-xfce-desktop installs an extra 235 MB here. task-lxde-desktop, 198 MB. These numbers should give a rough picture, but are not very representative. I wish it was a little less, but I would say that 20 MB versus about 200 MB is reasonable, considering the alternative, providing only CLI package managers. 

For reference:


# LANG=C apt-get install synaptic
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
aptdaemon aptdaemon-data gir1.2-atk-1.0 gir1.2-freedesktop gir1.2-gdkpixbuf-2.0 gir1.2-gtk-3.0 gir1.2-pango-1.0 gir1.2-vte-2.90 libcairo-perl libglib-perl libgtk2-perl libpango-perl librarian0 libvte-2.90-9 libvte-2.90-common libvte-common libvte9 python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets python-defer python-gnupginterface python-software-properties rarian-compat software-properties-common software-properties-gtk unattended-upgrades 
Suggested packages:
libfont-freetype-perl libgtk2-perl-doc dwww deborphan apt-xapian-index bsd-mailx 
The following NEW packages will be installed:
aptdaemon aptdaemon-data gir1.2-atk-1.0 gir1.2-freedesktop gir1.2-gdkpixbuf-2.0 gir1.2-gtk-3.0 gir1.2-pango-1.0 gir1.2-vte-2.90 libcairo-perl libglib-perl libgtk2-perl libpango-perl librarian0 libvte-2.90-9 libvte-2.90-common libvte-common libvte9 python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets python-defer python-gnupginterface python-software-properties rarian-compat software-properties-common software-properties-gtk synaptic unattended-upgrades 
0 upgraded, 27 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 4823 kB/8447 kB of archives.
After this operation, 22.9 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? n
Abort.
root@vinci:/etc/php5# LANG=C apt-get install software-properties-gtk
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
aptdaemon aptdaemon-data gir1.2-atk-1.0 gir1.2-freedesktop gir1.2-gdkpixbuf-2.0 gir1.2-gtk-3.0 gir1.2-pango-1.0 gir1.2-vte-2.90 libvte-2.90-9 libvte-2.90-common python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets python-defer python-gnupginterface python-software-properties software-properties-common unattended-upgrades 
Suggested packages:
  bsd-mailx
The following NEW packages will be installed:
aptdaemon aptdaemon-data gir1.2-atk-1.0 gir1.2-freedesktop gir1.2-gdkpixbuf-2.0 gir1.2-gtk-3.0 gir1.2-pango-1.0 gir1.2-vte-2.90 libvte-2.90-9 libvte-2.90-common python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets python-defer python-gnupginterface python-software-properties software-properties-common software-properties-gtk unattended-upgrades 
0 upgraded, 18 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 2844 kB/2903 kB of archives.
After this operation, 7818 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? n
Abort.
root@vinci:/etc/php5# LANG=C apt-get install rarian-compat
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  librarian0
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  librarian0 rarian-compat
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 196 kB of archives.
After this operation, 659 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? n
Abort.
root@vinci:/etc/php5# LANG=C apt-get install libgtk2-perl
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libcairo-perl libglib-perl libpango-perl
Suggested packages:
  libfont-freetype-perl libgtk2-perl-doc
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libcairo-perl libglib-perl libgtk2-perl libpango-perl
0 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 1783 kB of archives.
After this operation, 5404 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? n
Abort.
root@vinci:/etc/php5# LANG=C apt-get install libvte9
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libvte-common
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libvte-common libvte9
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/1160 kB of archives.
After this operation, 2410 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? n
Abort.
root@vinci:/etc/php5# LANG=C apt-get --no-install-recommends install synaptic 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libvte-common libvte9
Suggested packages:
  dwww deborphan apt-xapian-index
Recommended packages:
  libgtk2-perl rarian-compat software-properties-gtk
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libvte-common libvte9 synaptic
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/3565 kB of archives.
After this operation, 8980 kB of additional disk space will be used.
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