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Re: gcc as optional



"A Mennucc1" wrote:
>As a side note, I have found this:
>gcc (and companions) has "Priority: standard"  ;
>this means that, unless the user goes into dselect and deselects all
>of them, it always gets installed; in particular, if the user is low
>on space, this can be annoying
>
>I here propose that gcc (and companions) become "Priority: optional"
>
>rationale is that many users can work on Debian without compiling anything;
>moreover tasksel has a " [ ] C and C++ "  line, that is almost 
>useless, since gcc is installed nonetheless

Watch out.  You can probably safely make some more of the GCC packages, such 
as g++ and gcc, "optional".  But this has to be dealt with on a 
one-binary-package-at-a-time basis.

* cpp is depended on by a lot of odd things, including the X Window System, 
and should definitely be "standard".
* Of course, libgcc1 amd libstdc++5 are "required".
* g77 and gcj are already "optional".

Also, if you're going to demote gcc, you should also demote binutils, bin86, 
bison, flex, gdb, make, and rcs, all of which are of about equal utility -- 
and probably every other 'standard' program in the 'devel' section as well.

So in summary, I don't think this proposal is well-thought-out.



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