On Sun, Jul 09, 2006 at 11:15:07PM +0000, Jason Spiro <jasonspiro4+news@gmail.com> was heard to say: > Hi all, thank you all for producing such nice software (apt-get, > aptitude, synaptic, wajig, etc.) > > My question is: > > Recently I did: sudo aptitude install gnomemeeting. Gnomemeeting seems > to have pulled in 77 packages, including recommendations: > > cupsys cupsys-bsd cupsys-client docbook-xml evolution-data-server > foomatic-db foomatic-db-engine foomatic-filters gnome-doc-utils > gnome-icon-theme gnome-mime-data libavahi-glib1 libavc1394-0 > libbonobo2-0 libbonobo2-common libbonoboui2-0 libbonoboui2-common > libcamel1.2-8 libcroco3 libdbus-glib-1-2 libdc1394-13 libdirectfb-0.9-24 > libdv4 libebook1.2-5 libecal1.2-3 libedata-book1.2-2 libedata-cal1.2-1 > libedataserver1.2-7 libegroupwise1.2-9 libglade2-0 libgnome2-0 > libgnome2-common libgnomecanvas2-0 libgnomecanvas2-common > libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0 libgnomeprint2.2-data > libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomeui-0 > libgnomeui-common libgnomevfs2-0 libgnomevfs2-common libgnomevfs2-extra > libgsf-1-114 libgsf-1-common libhal-storage1 libhal1 libmozjs0d > libnspr4-0d libnss3-0d libopenh323-1.18.0 libpt-1.10.0 > libpt-plugins-alsa libpt-plugins-avc libpt-plugins-dc libpt-plugins-oss > libpt-plugins-v4l libpt-plugins-v4l2 libraw1394-5 librsvg2-2 > librsvg2-common libsdl1.2debian libsdl1.2debian-alsa libslp1 > libsmbclient libsoup2.2-8 libsysfs2 libxml2-utils libxul0d > python-libxml2 python2.3-libxml2 sgml-data shared-mime-info smbclient > xsltproc yelp > > I am low on disk space on this machine. Should aptitude really pull in > recommendations of dependencies, like both yelp (Gnome help) and > gnomeprint which it depends on? Could there be a way to intelligently > prompt the user to leave out certain Suggestions which would use up a > lot of disk space if the user was low on disk space? Recommendations are not suggestions (in technical Debian parlance). Recommendations are meant to be installed in "nearly all" configurations; they are for software that you CAN work without, but which will lead to a system that lacks important functionality or needs manual configuration if you leave them out. Suggestions are for "optional extras" that you might want to install with a given package, but that have no bearing on the package's core functionality. See Policy section 7.2 for details. In other words, if you find software being installed by default that is not necessary, you should file a bug against the package that has overly aggressive recommendations. aptitude is just doing what the package control fields say to do, and it would be wrong for it to try to substitute its judgement for that of the package maintainers. Daniel
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