Re: dselect bug?? client-only installations of X..

[Bob Hilliard <hilliard@flinet.com>]

Jules Bean <jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk> writes:
> In the case of a recommends, surely it should accept my choice not to
> install an xserver?

     It is not intuitive, but this is the proper behavior.  You can
force dselect to skip a "recommended" package, but it isn't easy.
dpkg will install what you want, ignoring any "Recommends:".  Section
8.2 of the Packaging Manual says:

     `Recommends'
          This declares a strong, but not absolute, dependency.

          `Recommends' is ignored by dpkg, so that users using the
          command-line (who are presumed to know what they're doing) will
          not be impeded.

          It is treated by dselect exactly as `Depends' is; this makes it
          hard for the user to select things so as to leave `Recommends'
          fields unsatisfied, but they are able to do so by being
          persistent.

          The `Recommends' field should list packages that would be found
          together with this one in all but unusual installations.

Bob
-- 
   _
  |_)  _  |_       Robert D. Hilliard    <hilliard@flinet.com>
  |_) (_) |_)      Palm City, FL  USA    PGP Key ID: A8E40EB9


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