Re: Too many Recommends (in particular on mail-transport-agent)
Paul Wise writes ("Re: Too many Recommends (in particular on mail-transport-agent)"):
> On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 9:55 PM, Adam Borowski wrote:
> > bash-completion: bash dput-ng licensecheck
> > * DEBATABLE: I like the Tab key to do something reasonable,
> > "bash-completion" means you never know what you'll get.
>
> I definitely would not want to run a Debian system that didn't have
> bash-completion installed. Being able to tab complete command-line
> arguments and apt package names are two examples of invaluable
> features this package provides.
I recognise that many feel that way; personally I hate bash-completion
and turn it off. But that's beside the point.
Whether installing bash-completion is a good idea on a particular
system depends on the opinions and tastes (and finger macros) of its
administrators and users. It does not depend on whether dput-ng or
licensecheck are installed. So there the dput-ng and licensecheck
Recommends are silly.
And they cause actual lossage: bash-completion is installed by
default, so if it is not installed that's because the administrator
wanted it that way. Trying to install dput-ng or licensecheck should
not pull in bash-completion as a side-effect.
The Recommends from bash is just the way that it gets installed by
default. I think it would be better for it to be in tasksel. A very
minimal machine (with no tasks, or some very minimal task) will work
fine with bash but without bash-completion.
AFAICT none of these three have been filed as a bug yet so I will do
that right away for dput-ng and licensecheck.
I guess for bash, the right answer would be to file bugs against
tasksel and bash, and block the bash bug with the tasksel bug ?
FAOD I am not trying to change the usual default from `with
bash-completion' to `without bash-completion'. I'm just trying to
arrange that it's slightly easier not to have bash-completion if you
want to, and that it doesn't come back unexpectedly if you deinstall
it.
Ian.
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