Re: major problem with gnome-games dependency
I want to thank all of you for responding. I'm quoting here a response I
gave to an off-line communication because I thought it might be germane
to the discussion. I have expanded my response a little.
I have removed gnome, gnome-desktop-environment and gnome-games with no
apparent side effects. However, there were a number of KDE games that
I had to remove by hand (Yes, I had both KDE and gnome on the machine).
The workings of meta packages are very interesting and, in the end, very
clean, if you are initiated (as I am beginning to be). I would just
point out that if Debian is targeting
scientists and engineers with limited time, and some, but not burning,
curiosity about installation, that you spend a little time thinking
about how to make meta packages transparent at installation.
As a layman's recommendation, it might be nice to have a gnome
installation dialog that asked you to check the components you want for
installation, similar to the task selection on the (old?) debian
installer. Some care would be required so that this had a human level of
detail. For example, you might have tasks, such as mail, office, games,
network (or, perhaps, browser). This would always be imperfect, but it
would obviate the need for gnome-without-games or
gnome-without-evolution, etc.
Art Edwards
cmetzler@speakeasy.net wrote:
I work at a government laboratory where computer games are prohibited. I
also use the gnome desktop. When I try to remove gnome-games apt wanst
to remove gnome because gnome depends on gnome-games. This is really a
show-stopper for government use of Linux. Also, I would think that the
dependency should work the other way: gnome-games should depend on gnome.
I worked at a government laboratory where computer games were prohibited.
We used Debian there; it behaved exactly the same way. Strangely, it
didn't cause us a problem.
The reason it didn't is because when you remove gnome-games, apt does
*not* try to remove the GNOME desktop. Instead, it tries to remove
the meta-package "gnome", which is not the same thing.
You may want to google this list's archives on what meta-packages are
and how they work.
Cheers,
-c
P.S. The meta-package "gnome"'s dependence upon the (meta?) package
gnome-games is perfectly sane, given what meta-packages are for.
--
Arthur H. Edwards
Senior Research Physicist
Air Force Research Laboratory
AFRL/VSSE
Bldg. 914
3550 Aberdeen Ave. SE
KAFB, NM 87117-5776
(505) 853-6042 (O)
(505) 463-6722 (C)
(505) 846-2290 (F)
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