Paul Wise writes ("Re: Too many Recommends (in particular on mail-transport-agent)"): > On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 9:55 PM, Adam Borowski wrote: > > bash-completion: bash dput-ng licensecheck > > * DEBATABLE: I like the Tab key to do something reasonable, > > "bash-completion" means you never know what you'll get. > > I definitely would not want to run a Debian system that didn't have > bash-completion installed. Being able to tab complete command-line > arguments and apt package names are two examples of invaluable > features this package provides.
I recognise that many feel that way; personally I hate bash-completion and turn it off. But that's beside the point. Whether installing bash-completion is a good idea on a particular system depends on the opinions and tastes (and finger macros) of its administrators and users. It does not depend on whether dput-ng or licensecheck are installed. So there the dput-ng and licensecheck Recommends are silly. And they cause actual lossage: bash-completion is installed by default, so if it is not installed that's because the administrator wanted it that way. Trying to install dput-ng or licensecheck should not pull in bash-completion as a side-effect. The Recommends from bash is just the way that it gets installed by default. I think it would be better for it to be in tasksel. A very minimal machine (with no tasks, or some very minimal task) will work fine with bash but without bash-completion. AFAICT none of these three have been filed as a bug yet so I will do that right away for dput-ng and licensecheck. I guess for bash, the right answer would be to file bugs against tasksel and bash, and block the bash bug with the tasksel bug ? FAOD I am not trying to change the usual default from `with bash-completion' to `without bash-completion'. I'm just trying to arrange that it's slightly easier not to have bash-completion if you want to, and that it doesn't come back unexpectedly if you deinstall it. Ian.