Re: Reasons for recommends and suggests
>>>>> "Don" == Don Armstrong <don@debian.org> writes:
>> But then you could just say: "Useful in case template databases
>> get corrupted". There is no need to go and explain details.
Don> If you're not going to explain what it actually does, why
Don> bother writing it at all? You could just as easily assume
Don> that the package maintainer knows what they're talking about
Don> when they mark a package as Recommends: and assume that it
Don> should be actually installed in the default case.
Don> The information above isn't enough to make a rational
Don> decision as to whether you really need debconf-utils when
Don> you've got ucf installed or not.
Another user might look at the same package, with the description and
think "this computer only has a restricted amount of disk space and I
really don't care if the database does get corrupted - I don't expect
this system to be around much longer anyway - so I will ignore the
suggestion and won't install the package."
With no description it might be more along the lines of "I don't know
why this package is suggested maybe I will have to install it anyway
just in case... Lets hope I have enough disk space..."
(sure, it is unlikely you would run out of disk space installing the
mentioned package, but for the general case, it is very possible.)
--
Brian May <bam@snoopy.debian.net>
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