Re: Difference Dependency-Recommendation

[Francois Gouget <fgouget@free.fr>]

On 28 Dec 2000, John Hasler wrote:

> Holger writes:
> > I don't quite understand the difference between "Dependency" and
> > "Recommendation", two terms that commonly occur when talking about
> > Debian's packet management system.
> 
> 'Depends' means that the package will not work without it.  'Recommends'
> means that the package maintainer recommends it, but the package will work
> without it.
> 
> > I think both have the same result: the packet (usually, unless explicitly
> > overridden) gets installed.
> 
> No.  dpkg (which is what actually installs packages regardless of the
> front-end) will not install packages with unsatisfied dependencies unless
> you use '--force-depends'.  It ignores 'Recommends' (as does apt).  dselect
> gets rather insistent about 'Recommends', but its insistence can be
> overridden.

   I have a related question: what is the difference between Recommends
and Suggests?

   IIRC, dselect insists strenuously that you should install 'Suggested'
packages. If you de-select the suggested package it will pop-up the
conflict resolution window, if you override it it will do so again once
you exit select mode, ...
   From where I stand it looks like 'suggest' is equivalent to
'depends'.



--
Francois Gouget         fgouget@free.fr        http://fgouget.free.fr/
     We are Pentium of Borg. You will be approximated. Division is futile.