Wolodja Wentland <babi...@gmail.com> (30/08/2011): > It is my impression that the problems mentioned in my initial mail can > be solved by changing metapackages (like those mentioned by Cyril in > his reply) to use Recommends instead of Depends. > > I am, however, not entirely sure if there are any good reasons for not > doing this and therefore hoped to spur a discussion of this topic. > What is problematic about this change or a general suggestion that > metapackages should use Recommends instead of Depends?
If you do that, you lose the distinction between packages that are absolutely required, and those that are only a recommendation, and can be skipped by the experienced users. If you look at xfce4, you can see it pulls by default xorg (which pulls in turn an X server and drivers), and a few extra items which are not strictly needed. For example, if you want to run xfce4 with an exported display, you don't really need an X server. Or desktop-base support. So if you know what you're doing, you can still use the meta package to pull the Depends, but skip some if not all Recommends. Mraw, KiBi.
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