Dan Jacobson wrote: > > I was thinking that to have a "valid" debian system, all "required" > > packages must be installed. > > < That's true for essential package, but required != essential. > > /usr/share/doc/debian/FAQ/debian-faq.en.txt.gz: > 6.7. What is a _Required_, _Important_, _Standard_, _Optional_, or _Extra_ > package? > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Each Debian package is assigned a _priority_ by the distribution > maintainers, as an aid to the package management system. The > priorities are: > > * _Required_: packages that are necessary for the proper > functioning of the system. > > This includes all tools that are necessary to repair system > defects. You must not remove these packages or your system may > become totally broken and you may probably not even be able to > use dpkg to put things back.
This is more true for essential packages, and maybe not always accurate for required packages that are not essential. > I will file a bug to get essential added to this file. It is mentioned > in debian-policy but not here. Rmember that essential is not a priority but a flag. Most required packages have this flag, but not all of them.
