Re: Installation of Recommends by default on October 1st

[Manuel Prinz <debian@pinguinkiste.de>]

Michael Tautschnig wrote:
> Please consider two things:
> - More than 90% of all processors are installed in embedded systems (of course,
>   only on pretty few of them Debian is installed)
> - (Debian) Linux is still more widely spread on server systems than on Desktops
>   ([1,2] sorry, both are German)

Thanks for the links, it was an interesting read! I was aware of the
fact that Embedded Devices have to be taken into account, was well as
servers and other non-desktop boxes. I don't want to ignore them but I
think it's users are skilled enough to deal with the issue.

> However, especially Desktop users must be handled with extra care, so probably
> staying with the current state really isn't an option. What I'd propose is not a
> debconf question by apt, but rather the debian-installer. I'd follow this
> approach for three reasons:
> - debconf is used by the d-i anyway already, so no need for the APT-people to
>   add debconf-stuff
> - the d-i may be pre-seeded, so auto-installs using the d-i may avoid displaying 
>   this question
> - In case someone doesn't use d-i to setup systems there will be ways to modify
>   the apt configuration anyway (be it copying or editing of config files or
>   whatever)
> 
> What remains to be discussed is then, whether already installed systems should
> get recommended packages or not. To go a little further, what would be a proper
> way of asking users whether they want their settings changed or not (apart from
> apt asking debconf questions).

I agree with you here. I think that new installations aren't affected
much because there are possibilities to work around the "problem"
easily, as you have shown above. So the real problem is in the current
transition. I would not like a debconf from apt either but can't really
come up with a better solution. The only thing that comes into my mind
to use a wrapper for apt-get that checks if APT::Install-Recommends
being set in the preferences and prints a warning that the default
behavior has changed and pointing to some document that describes the
changes. Hope someone has a smarter idea. :)

Best regards
Manuel