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Re: antisocial X11 apps: xtet42, chimera



Bdale Garbee writes:
> : xtet42 depends on X11R6 and recommends xserver. This is what Ian Murdoch
> : said all X packages should do.
> 
> I don't understand why this makes sense, for two reasons.  Ian M, was there
> some other good reason for this suggestion that I've missed?
> 
> First, in general, I'm not aware of any case (yet) in which a recommends line
> has caused me to do anything in an install that I wouldn't have done otherwise,
> and in several cases (this one, the inewsnn recommending trn which I don't 
> care about problem, etc) it's been a royal pain, and continues to be every time
> I update.  Ergo, I think recommends is, at best, too strong.
> 
> Second, the whole point of X, to me, is that you can run clients on one machine
> and a server somewhere else.  We build products at work that include X clients
> in embedded systems, and I've got a variety of systems in my basement that
> have networking and X client code but no video hardware at all.  Ergo, I think
> that any sort of explicit relationship in the package file between clients 
> and servers is counter to the whole point of X, and should be abandoned...  

Yes but your not a common case. The common user will install X cause he wants
to run X on his machine. To a newbie it's important as they can't use X if
they didn't know they were supposed to install a server. If I can get
around dependencies quite simply I don't see why you are having a problem
getting around recommends. Though I never use dselect, maybe that's your
problem.

Andrew

-- 
Dehydration - 34%, Recollection of previous evening - 2%, embarrassment
factor - 91%.  Advise repair schedule:- off line for 36 hours, re-boot
startup disk, and replace head - wow, what a night!
                -- Kryten in Red Dwarf `The Last Day'

Andrew Howell				               andrew@it.com.au 
Perth, Western Australia		      howellaa@cs.curtin.edu.au 


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