On Tue, 28 Sep 1999, Brian Servis wrote:
> *- On 28 Sep, Josip Rodin wrote about "Re: mtools"
> > On Tue, Sep 28, 1999 at 07:13:58AM -0700, Joseph Carter wrote:
> >> > How comes mtools depend on xlib6g? I don't use X, and thus I consider it
> >> > very stupid to have both xlib6g & xfree86-common installed, but I have to
> >> > if I want mtools installed...
> >>
> >> If something supports X it should be compiled with X. This means exactly
> >> two packages (xlib6g and xfree86-common) are also required, but they're
> >> reasonably smallish and anything which supports X is going to require
> >> them anyway, not just mtools.
> >
> > Better to fork off another package, which would include X support, and
> > leave the original package X-free.
> >
>
> What about the [x]emacs packages. I would hate to see forks of all
> those things on the mirrors. Maybe a Suggests or Recommends would be
> better than a Depends.
Guys, guys, guys... This is a discussion that was had quite a while ago,
and which lead to the creation of xlib6. The whole point was that it was
unnecessary glut to include a console version _and_ an X aware version of
packages like emacs (and others), when a small library could provide all
that was necessary to make a single program both console and X compatible.
xfree86-common is simply a recent way to remove the architectural
independent pieces from xlib6 and provide them in an independent fashion.
You cannot simply reduce the dependency to a lower level, like Recommends,
or Suggests, as the program, linked against xlib6 will have unsatisfied
references, if the library is not installed.
While it may seem a bit "insensitive" to force these two packages on
everyone. It seems a better situation than requiring you to load two
complete versions of emacs just to get console _and_ X aware editors. The
fact that this impacts every application that would be useful in an X
environment, makes "insisting" that everyone install xlib6 a very good
thing.
Luck,
Dwarf
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