Re: major problem with gnome-games dependency

[cmetzler@speakeasy.net]

> I work at a government laboratory where computer games are prohibited. I 
> also use the gnome desktop. When I try to remove gnome-games apt wanst 
> to remove gnome because gnome depends on gnome-games. This is really a 
> show-stopper for government use of Linux. Also, I would think that the 
> dependency should work the other way: gnome-games should depend on gnome.

I worked at a government laboratory where computer games were prohibited.
We used Debian there; it behaved exactly the same way. Strangely, it
didn't cause us a problem.

The reason it didn't is because when you remove gnome-games, apt does
*not* try to remove the GNOME desktop. Instead, it tries to remove
the meta-package "gnome", which is not the same thing.

You may want to google this list's archives on what meta-packages are
and how they work.

Also, because so many people use this software, any time you think
there's a "major problem", suspect instead that there's something
you're not doing right, or haven't set up right, or don't completely
understand.  That's not because major problems don't occur:  of course
they do.  But it's *usually* operator error instead; and that's not
surprising, since it's unlikely that with the hundreds of thousands
of people who use the software, any one person is the first person to
notice a major problem.

Cheers,

-c

P.S. The meta-package "gnome"'s dependence upon the (meta?) package
gnome-games is perfectly sane, given what meta-packages are for.