Re: Possible mass bug filing: non-doc packages recommending doc packages
Roger Lynn <roger@rilynn.demon.co.uk> writes:
> On Fri, May 08, 2009 at 07:00:25PM +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
>> On Thu, May 07, 2009 at 09:47:56PM -0700, Daniel Burrows wrote:
>> > As a practical matter, downgrading these dependencies will cause
>> > aptitude and other package managers to believe that the documentation
>> > is unnecessary and suggest removing it.
>>
>> Even if the user marked as non-automatic the involved -doc packages?
>>
>> Anyhow, even if it is the case, I'm tempted to just reply "too
>> bad". The admin will notice that and take it as an occasion for doing
>> a review of which doc she really wants and which she wants not.
>
> As a user, I like being able to mark documentation packages as being
> automatically installed, so that when I remove the associated packages
> the package manager will automatically offer to remove the then unneeded
> documentation packages at the same time. Otherwise there is a good
> chance the documentation packages will litter the system forever, or at
> least until I get around to doing a manual cleanup (which might never
> happen).
>
> I suppose another way around this would be to be able to mark suggested
> packages as being automatically installed so they could be removed
> automatically when the suggesting package is removed.
>
> Roger
I think a better solution would be to mark packages as tied to each
other. Foo-doc or foo-data should be marked as tied to foo. That means
as long as foo is installed they will be kept installed. As soon as
foo gets removed they fall under the auto-install rule.
Unlike Depends, Recommends, Suggests this would be purely a users
choice. For example you could tie autotools-dev and devscripts to
build-essential.
MfG
Goswin
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