Re: Bug#532515: on making decisions vs letting things happen
On Sun, Jul 05, 2009 at 03:53:06PM +0200, Frans Pop wrote: > On Sunday 05 July 2009, Frans Pop wrote: > > I must say that I'm not at all sure that the change to include > > Recommends wasn't done prematurely or too lightly. It is quite likely > > to also affect the server tasks in quite a big way and could have a > > major impact on the contents of CD images if not handled correctly. So does that mean you feel that the policy manual's description of Recommends is wrong, or that Debian installations should be unusual by default? Realistically, either (a) the Recommends were correct or (b) nobody was going to bother fixing them until they started being installed by default as policy says they should be. It's one thing to say that something is premature, but the previous situation was just a deadlock. > I also feel it is rather inconsistent to have tasksel install Recommends > while debootstrap and base-installer do not. debootstrap is a slightly odd case (because it's also used to construct explicitly minimal systems, in which case the rules seem different) and I've long been unsure about how it should behave. Maybe it just needs an option for it. I think it's more important for tasksel to be consistent with the default configuration of apt than with how the base system is installed, though. -- Colin Watson [cjwat...@debian.org] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-cd-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Bug#532515: handling of Recommends (was: on making decisions vs letting things happen)
On Monday 06 July 2009, Colin Watson wrote: > So does that mean you feel that the policy manual's description of > Recommends is wrong, or that Debian installations should be unusual by > default? I don't think policy for Recommends is wrong, but I do feel it results to a hell of a lot of packages getting installed that are not actually needed/wanted in practice. IMO the special handling of Recommends in D-I so far was justified, especially as we did consciously compensate for not installing Recommends by default by adding them to the task definitions in cases where they were really needed/wanted. > Realistically, either (a) the Recommends were correct or (b) nobody was > going to bother fixing them until they started being installed by > default as policy says they should be. I feel that the change could have been discussed more before being implemented in tasksel, possibly with some coordinated effort to check the impact on _all_ tasks instead of just the Gnome desktop task and maybe filing bugs to fix the most problematic Recommends. At the very least the impact on or consequences for debian-cd should have been discussed *before* the change was made. > It's one thing to say that something is premature, but the previous > situation was just a deadlock. There have been improvements of the use of Recommends during Lenny. Maybe not as many as needed, but still. > debootstrap is a slightly odd case (because it's also used to construct > explicitly minimal systems, in which case the rules seem different) and > I've long been unsure about how it should behave. Maybe it just needs > an option for it. I can agree to some extend with debootstrap although you could also argue that we should be consistent, maybe with an expert option to _consistently_ ignore Recommends for those who want a bare minimal install. IMO there is no justification to treat packages installed by base-installer or other components using apt-install differently from those installed by tasksel. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-cd-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Bug#532515: handling of Recommends (was: on making decisions vs letting things happen)
Frans Pop wrote: > I don't think policy for Recommends is wrong, but I do feel it results to > a hell of a lot of packages getting installed that are not actually > needed/wanted in practice. We have a whole release cycle to sort this out now. > IMO the special handling of Recommends in D-I > so far was justified, especially as we did consciously compensate for not > installing Recommends by default by adding them to the task definitions > in cases where they were really needed/wanted. I seemed to be approximatly the only one doing that, and am inactive though.. > I feel that the change could have been discussed more before being > implemented in tasksel, possibly with some coordinated effort to check > the impact on _all_ tasks instead of just the Gnome desktop task and > maybe filing bugs to fix the most problematic Recommends. Yes, a non-inactive person to handle this in tasksel would have done much better than me. -- see shy jo signature.asc Description: Digital signature
