Dear Chris, On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 15:17:41 Chris Bainbridge wrote: > As I said, for people on fast broadband installing a 100MB+ > documentation file is no problem. For users in developing countries > relying on poor internet connections (like me), a 100MB+ download can > be a problem.
Usually it is better to Recommend -doc packages. If -doc package is not
installed by default then people may experience a lot of frustration later
when they are unable to pull additional packages due to limited connectivity.
Imagine you "apt-get install gnucash", disconnected, moved to jungle and
realised that documentation is not available hence you can't learn about some
functionality etc.
I'm convinced that it is always better to pull docs with recommended packages
than to merely Suggest it. Besides I've seen (and actioned) requests to
promote -doc packages from Suggests to Recommends in other packages (e.g.
"gnumeric" etc.).
Even when I was using analogue modem I wasn't too concerned about the speed of
connection. If your connection is slow then it just takes longer to download
large packages (which is not a problem). It could be much worse (and very
expensive) to download packages over 3G in which case "--no-install-
recommends" may be handy.
Also I'd like to think that everybody will benefit if we encourage more people
to read documentation. In that regards offline availability of docs can be
seen as helpful.
--
Best wishes,
Dmitry Smirnov
GPG key : 4096R/53968D1B
---
It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards
or golf.
-- H. L. Mencken
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