Re: Preventing installation of specific packages
On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 12:24:33PM +0800, Jason Heeris wrote:
> On 18 November 2010 12:10, Tzafrir Cohen <tzafrir.cohen@xorcom.com> wrote:
> > Maybe explicitly install ssmtp (or some other minimal package)?
> > Specifically, ssmtp does not start any daemon. But it Provides
> > mail-transport-agent.
>
> But I don't want an MTA *at all* — it's always the first thing I
> remove from a new system, since nothing I use ever requires it (it
> would have to be my biggest peeve in Debian, in fact).
What's wrong with installing ssmtp? Sure, it takes an extra 100kB or so
of disk space (50kB compressed). It does not start any daemon, listen on
any port, or whatever. You may find that overhead simpler than the other
proposed solutions.
>
> Besides, it's not just the MTA I want to avoid, there are other
> recommends in other packages I'd quite like to leave off.
You want to include some but avoid others? If so, I suspect you should
avoiding recommendations, and explicitly include the recommendations you
want in the list of packages. Daniel recommended using apt preferences
to make sure some packages are not installed. I presonally prefer a
slightly different alternative:
To tell aptitude: "Don't install mail-transport-agent and don't install
kitchen-sink" make sure you have a package that conflict with both:
Conflicts: mail-transport-agent, kitchen-sink
To generate such a package, use equivs, or create it manually. Add that
package (as a local package? Will that have the right effect when
installing the previous ones?), and you're done.
--
Tzafrir Cohen
icq#16849755 jabber:tzafrir.cohen@xorcom.com
+972-50-7952406 mailto:tzafrir.cohen@xorcom.com
http://www.xorcom.com iax:guest@local.xorcom.com/tzafrir
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