On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 11:11:24AM +0100, Tomasz Kundera wrote: > > * Recommends: "The Recommends field should list packages that would be > > found > > together with this one in all but unusual installations" > > > > The question is what should be the default behaviour. At least in the > minimal installation the default should be "No", don't install Recommends. > It was a default Debian policy not so long ago. It was a good policy. Now > the default Recommends policy in Debian ("Yes") is very often misused to > install really unneeded stuff. >
Well, unfortunately there is currently no clear-cut about Recommends. In most of the cases a package will work fine 99.99% of the times even if you don't have the Recommends installed (as in the case of the gdbserver recommended by gdb), in some of the cases a Recommend is simply unnecessary (like exim4 recommended by mutt) but in many other cases Recommends include "standard" package associations, which would make your package loose some important/typical functionalities if not installed (like in the case of ghostscript recommended by gimp)... My2Cents KatolaZ -- [ Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ --- GLUG Catania -- Freaknet Medialab ] [ me [at] katolaz.homeunix.net -- http://katolaz.homeunix.net -- ] [ GNU/Linux User:#325780/ICQ UIN: #258332181/GPG key ID 0B5F062F ] [ Fingerprint: 8E59 D6AA 445E FDB4 A153 3D5A 5F20 B3AE 0B5F 062F ] _______________________________________________ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng