Re: Depends: awk -- Is that required?

[Recai Oktas <roktas@omu.edu.tr>]

* Steve Langasek [2005-11-09 19:25:40-0800]
> awk is "virtually essential": it can't be Essential: yes because that would
> prevent removing mawk in favor of gawk, but awk is a dependency of another
> essential package to ensure that you can use basic awk functionality without
> having to depend on it.

Just to make things a little clearer, the above is the excerpt from the
changelog of 'base-files' (an essential package):

  base-files (1.7) unstable; urgency=low
                                                                                                      
    * Added "Depends: awk", so that awk is a "virtual essential package".
    [...]

  [dated as 23 Feb 1998]

-- 
roktas