Hello world, On priorities, amongst other things, policy says: `required' `required' packages are necessary for the proper functioning of the system. You must not remove these packages or your system may become totally broken and you may not even be able to use `dpkg' to put things back. Systems with only the `required' packages are probably unusable, but they do have enough functionality to allow the sysadmin to boot and install more software. My understanding of this is that the "required" priority is essentially equivalent to "essential: yes" and should be used only for packages which *MUST* be on every system for dpkg to work and other packages to be able to be installed. I don't think this is the case atm. The following packages are marked priority: required, but not essential: yes. adduser libpam-modules mbr ae libpam-runtime modutils console-data libpam0g passwd console-tools libreadline4 perl-5.005-base console-tools-libs libstdc++2.10 procps ldso libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2 setserial libc6 makedev slang1 libncurses5 mawk sysklogd Of them, libc6, libncurses5, libpam*, libreadline*, libstdc++*, slang1 are libraries, and can't be marked essential, and: mawk, perl-5.005-base are depended on by other packages, but have compatible alternatives so may be replaced, so shouldn't be marked essential. Of those remaining, console-data/console-tools/console-tools-libs ldso, makedev, procps look like good candidates for essential: yes markers, at least for the architectures that actually use them. OTOH, adduser, ae, mbr, modutils, passwd, setserial, sysklogd are all probably downgradable to either "important" (your system can be recovered without these packages, but you're insane if you don't have them), or lower. This is not to say they shouldn't still always be installed by default, of course. I've filed a bug against ae to this effect already, btw. Cheers, aj -- Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/> I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred. ``We reject: kings, presidents, and voting. We believe in: rough consensus and working code.'' -- Dave Clark
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