> >Programs that are useful by itself could install with a counter that's > >already 1 higher. For example: if all the packages that depend on Xterm are > >removed, the counter of Xterm is still not zero. So it would not be > deleted. > >Thinking a bit longer: in this way almost no programs reach zero. > > > Then, they'd have to start with a counter of 1 only when they were selected > by the user, and a counter of 0 when dselect selected to enforce a > dependency.
And the clueless would still start shouting "I removed XXX and then YYY disappeared too!!! Without warning!!! This sucks!!!" This would happen because he install XXX which depends on YYY, so YYY gets auto-installed. Then the user finds YYY very useful, get tired of XXX and toss it. Maybe they could get a question like "do you want to get rid of YYY too? It was installed only for supporting XXX but may be useful on its own." That, or let them clean up manually the way we do today. Auto-removal should apply only to stuff that can't work alone, such as libraries. Even libraries are dangerous as the user may have written his own unpackaged program using some library. Helge Hafting
