Bug#502527: texlive-bin: Clean up Recommends (dvi2tty not in testing)

[Frank Küster <frank@debian.org>]

Hilmar Preuße <hille42@web.de> wrote:

> On 17.10.08 Martin Pitt (martin.pitt@ubuntu.com) wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
>> texlive-extra-utils currently recommends dvi2tty and dvidvi. IMHO
>> they should be dropped to Suggests:, since LaTeX defaults and
>> encourages using PDF now.
>>
> I'm not sure if the discussion already ended. IMHO some people still
> use dvi and have some good reasons to do it.

I use dvi routinely - but I never use dvi2tty or dvidvi. In particular,
for the purpose which dvidvi served, I take the pdf route - the
strengths of dvi lie elsewhere (a cool viewer usable without a mouse). 

>> Similarly, texlive-base-bin's Recommends: perl-tk seems too strong
>> to me. I am a fairly regular LaTeX user and have never ever needed
>> it.
>> 
> texdoctk needs it, and fails to start if it is not installed. Calling
> the command on the CLI causes and error message and from a menu it
> calls xmessage to tell about the missing lib. This was implemented
> about 2003 and we could lower the dep to recommend. Should we further
> lower to Suggests?

I think so - we do have decent error messages, and I expect that
texdoctk might no longer be included upstream next year: It's basically
unmaintained, whereas texdoc itself has now gotten new care.

Regards, Frank

-- 
Frank Küster
Debian Developer (TeXLive)
ADFC Miltenberg
B90/Grüne KV Miltenberg