Re: dependency on base package adduser ?

[Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu>]

Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@hungry.com> writes:
> [Matthijs Mohlmann]

>> But i'm not really sure about it because adduser is a base package. And
>> i thought you don't have to depend on a base package.

> Where did you get that idea?  Any references to documentation stating
> this?

> I suspect you confuse this with build-dependencies, where you can drop
> dependencies on build essesials.  A package is supposed to have a
> complete and correct list of dependencies for its binary packages.  Just
> look at how all binaries depend on libc.  It is a base package, but
> still listed as a dependency.

I think he might be confused by the difference between essential, priority
required, and section base.

So far as I know, a base package (section base) has no particular special
meaning from a dependency perspective, although I believe that section may
be reserved for required packages (but am not sure).

The Policy statement is that one does not have to depend on *essential*
packages:

    Packages are not required to declare any dependencies they have on
    other packages which are marked Essential (see below), and should not
    do so unless they depend on a particular version of that package.

Essential is a special flag that's separate from the priority.  You still
have to depend on even Priority: required packages that you use if they're
not essential.

Anyway, adduser is only Priority: important, which means that it's quite
possible for it to not be installed.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>