On Fri, Aug 27, 1999 at 10:08:25AM +0300, Paul Huygen wrote > John Pearson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > [objections for auto-installing Debian packages when a user types a > > command from a package that has not yet been installed. One of the > > objections is, that package installation ought to be a task of the > > manager of the computer system and not of an ordinary user] > > I can imagine another philosophy for automatic package installing. I > am sure that many people (I myself for instance) have installed many > more packages than they actually use. For that case I can imagine a > utility that remembers for each package the latest occasion that it > has actually been used, and removes the package if it has not been > used for a specific time. Then, if a user asks for that package, the > utility re-installs the package from the deb file. In this way the > system maintainer keeps control on what is installed, what is > installable and what is not installed and the system is as mean and > lean as possible. On the other hand, I presume that it is very > complicated to write a program that tracks the actual use of each installed > debian package. >
One thing that would be nice is an efficient tool for identifying packages (particularly, libraries) that are no longer required. At its simplest, a list of packages that do not provide any package required or recommended by another package (and that are, therefore, candidates for removal); more elaborately, a tool run out of a cron job that maintains such a list, and reports recent additions. That way, when you remove an app you can see which of its dependencies may also be removed. John P. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Oh - I - you know - my job is to fear everything." - Bill Gates in Denmark
