Quoting John Crawley (2019-07-12 22:52:55) > On 2019-07-13 06:39, Jonas Smedegaard wrote: > > ...some developers wrongly thought that recommends was same as > > suggests and therefore used depends far more than really needed. > > This. Installing with Recommends used to pull in a whole slew of > things that should have been Suggests, so users got into the habit of > installing without. > > > The bug got fixed, and slowly developers learned to make proper use > > of recommends as it was always intended. > > Most developers anyway. > > I remember when Debian systems started installing Recommends /by > default/ - and there was an outcry - but was this a fixed bug in > apt-get itself? Wasn't Debian Policy also amended a bit at that point > to make the purpose of Recommends clearer? Or had it always been that > way... Yes, it was a bugfix: Before the change apt-get was _broken_ and after the change apt-get behaved as intended. Yes, there has over the years been various edits to Policy which only clarified existing meaning, without changing any meaning - including clarifications to what "Recommends" means. Yes, some interpreted things differently and wanted back the "good old days" - despite being unintended and undocumented and suboptimal. Yes, some developers took quite some time to adapt to the "new" reality of a properly working apt-get - and possibly some developers still are living in a bubble. I hope not. > Anyway, even if your system default is to install Recommends, apt-get > (and apt too?) always gets user approval before installing anything > beyond the package asked for. If the list looks too long (s)he can > always hit (N) and try again with 'apt-get install > --no-install-recommends <package>' ...and suppressing recommends exeptionally like that is quite sensible. Again, my strong criticism is only suppressing recommends by *default*. - Jonas -- * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt * Tlf.: +45 40843136 Website: http://dr.jones.dk/ [x] quote me freely [ ] ask before reusing [ ] keep private
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