Re: Opt out style recommends

[Adam Borowski <kilobyte@angband.pl>]

On Thu, Apr 07, 2016 at 11:49:38PM -0400, Harlan Lieberman-Berg wrote:
> [1]: I say default here, but really, systems which turn off installing
> things which are Recommended are almost unusuable; I know for a while it
> was the policy of #debian to just turn away people who had done that
> because the system would be in such a strange state.

To the contrary, I'd say Recommends chains have ran amok to the point
installing Recommends without thinking leads to insanity.

When you install package X, its Recommends are indeed usually helpful.  The
Recommends of a random library package X pulls almost never are.

I somehow still haven't set APT::Get::Install-Recommends "false", but most
of the time at the apt install prompt I go "WTF?", re-run apt with
--no-install-recommends, read the list and only then maybe install them.

-- 
A tit a day keeps the vet away.