On 06/30/2013 11:06 AM, Jape Person wrote: > On 06/30/2013 10:40 AM, Patrick Wiseman wrote: >> On Sun, Jun 30, 2013 at 10:06 AM, Jape Person <jap...@comcast.net> wrote: >>> Hi! >>> >>> Forgive the facetious thread title, please. I just about got knocked out of >>> my >>> socks this morning when I ran my daily upgrade checks in aptitude. >>> >>> I run Debian testing with Xfce, and I'd like to keep it that way. >> >> Me, too. >> >>> About a year ago I switched out Wicd for network-manager-gnome so that I >>> could >>> make use of the latter package's ability to control VPN connections. I guess >>> that's the root cause of this little adventure. (However, IIRC, Xfce has >>> started >>> using network-manager-gnome instead of Wicd anyway.) >>> >>> This morning the usual upgrades included a gnome-bluetooth updgrade that >>> wanted >>> to pull in what appeared to be just about everything from the Gnome DE -- >>> roughly 117 packages. The gnome-bluetooth package was apparently on the >>> system >>> because the network manager wants it there. >>> >>> This was easy enough to prevent. I just held everything while I got rid of >>> gnome-bluetooth and its playmates, then put a forbid on gnome-bluetooth. The >>> ensuing upgrade attempt was a lot more reasonable. >>> >>> I don't suppose this really qualifies as a bug -- particularly since >>> network-manager-gnome really is a part of the Gnome DE. But I imagine a few >>> folks who use it in other DEs are going to be a little consternated by >>> today's >>> upgrades if they don't pay fairly close attention before committing to them. >>> >>> Thanks for reading my tale of woe (whoa?). >> >> I think this happened because gnome-bluetooth recommends >> gnome-control-center which in its turn depends on a bunch of stuff I >> don't need (and most of which is not on my system) and recommends a >> bunch more unnecessary stuff. The way I avoid what you saw this >> morning is to tell aptitude NOT to install by default packages >> recommended by other packages. That seems to prevent a lot of >> unnecessary installations. So I recommend setting that option in >> aptitude! You always have the option, after scanning what's >> recommended, to install what you want. >> >> Patrick > > That's a good point. Back when I decided to use Debian testing I decided to > stick with the default aptitude setting, which -- as you have indicated -- may > not be a great idea for those of us who prefer to keep things a little > simpler. > It does seem as though some of the recommends are a little excessive and > certainly shouldn't be treated as though they were hard dependencies. > > I'm not sure which will result in me doing less fiddling around in aptitude -- > not having recommends set to be installed by default and adding them manually > as > desired, or having aptitude set to install them by default and keeping a > watchful eye. It's really pretty easy to spot 117 new installations with the > aptitude TUI. But I often see smaller lists of new installations being brought > in and might end up installing stuff I don't need if I'm not on my toes. > > I think I'll take your advice. This (no recommends) is the way I used to use > aptitude. > > And you are exactly right about gnome-panel. The gnome-bluetooth package > itself > didn't require addition of all of the dross, but it's request for gnome-panel > is > what caused the landslide of recommended installations. > > J. > > ...and by gnome-panel I, of course, meant gnome-control-center...
Yeesh, I'm muddle-headed today! J. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/51d05d8f.7090...@comcast.net
