On Thu, May 17, 2007 at 11:29:16AM +0200, Hendrik Sattler wrote: > Hi, > > what I am really missing in the current dependency scheme is WHY some packages > define Recommends and Suggests on specific other packages. > > My problem with the current situation that you either do the policy of always > installing such stuff or you don't. There is no way to decide case by case > because there is definitely information missing in the description of > packages. > > OK, some of those are obvious but some Recommends and Suggests are completely > mysterious to me. And even after installation, I still don't know how those > additional packages do extend/improve/whatever the originally wanted package. > > It would be nice if maintainers of packages with Recommends and Suggests that > are non-obvious could state in the package description a reason for each of > them. > > If I file bugs about them, which severity can this be given? What I thought about a while ago was this: --------------- Package: mutt Suggests: ispell [adds spell cheking while composing emails] Suggests: urlview [extracts urls from email and can lanuch a web browser] Suggests: mixmaster [allows you to compose anonymized email] ------------- I'd see the maintainer create (or a user contribute) a 'short description' to accompany each suggest and recommends that is displayed $SOMEWHERE. So that the user can not just see a list of suggestions but a real reason as to why you'd want to install them. -- | .''`. == Debian GNU/Linux == | my web site: | | : :' : The Universal |mysite.verizon.net/kevin.mark/| | `. `' Operating System | go to counter.li.org and | | `- http://www.debian.org/ | be counted! #238656 | | my keyserver: subkeys.pgp.net | my NPO: cfsg.org | |join the new debian-community.org to help Debian! | |_______ Unless I ask to be CCd, assume I am subscribed _______|
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