Le Tue, Nov 05, 2024 at 05:35:59PM -0600, Aaron Rainbolt a écrit :

Hello, and thanks for your time.

I've been a Debian user and contributor for a while, and have noticed a rather frustrating issue that I'm interested in potentially
contributing code to fix. The issue is what I call "Recommended bloat",
which in short is what happens when you install a package with all of
its recommended packages, and end up with a whole lot of stuff installed
that you don't want and that the package you actually wanted probably
didn't even need.

A proposal I made was an option for apt to handle Recommends non
recursively.
That is if A Recommends B and B Recommends C,
apt-get install A --no-transitive-recommends
would install B but not C.

Cheers,
Bill.

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On 06/11/2024 19:20, Bill Allombert wrote:

Le Tue, Nov 05, 2024 at 05:35:59PM -0600, Aaron Rainbolt a écrit :

Hello, and thanks for your time.

I've been a Debian user and contributor for a while, and have noticed a
rather frustrating issue that I'm interested in potentially
contributing code to fix. The issue is what I call "Recommended bloat",
which in short is what happens when you install a package with all of
its recommended packages, and end up with a whole lot of stuff installed
that you don't want and that the package you actually wanted probably
didn't even need.

A proposal I made was an option for apt to handle Recommends non
recursively.
That is if A Recommends B and B Recommends C,
apt-get install A --no-transitive-recommends
would install B but not C.

This, please!

As a user, when I choose to install a package, I am likely to have a
reasonable idea of what that package's recommendations do and whether I need them. However, for transitive recommendations, it is unlikely that I will
know whether I need those packages. If they in turn have lots of further dependencies then I will probably not install them and take the risk of unwanted breakage to my system. If the top level package that I originally
did want needs those transitive recommendations it should recommend them itself, rather than relying on recommendations further down the dependency chain.

It would also be helpful if more package descriptions could explain why recommended and suggested packages are needed or helpful and what
functionality they provide that would be lost if they were not installed.
(Many already do this.)

Thanks,

Roger

PS. I use aptitude, so I can interactively browse through the lists of recommendations, but it's still hard work and it can be a long list of very obscure packages. Do any of the GUI package managers show a graphical dependency tree? That might be really helpful to understand the package relationships and visualise the consequences of various actions.

PPS. And the moon on a stick too, please!

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On Thursday, November 7, 2024 12:53:27 PM MST Roger Lynn wrote:

On 06/11/2024 19:20, Bill Allombert wrote:

Le Tue, Nov 05, 2024 at 05:35:59PM -0600, Aaron Rainbolt a écrit :

Hello, and thanks for your time.

I've been a Debian user and contributor for a while, and have noticed a
rather frustrating issue that I'm interested in potentially
contributing code to fix. The issue is what I call "Recommended bloat",
which in short is what happens when you install a package with all of
its recommended packages, and end up with a whole lot of stuff installed >> that you don't want and that the package you actually wanted probably
didn't even need.

A proposal I made was an option for apt to handle Recommends non recursively.
That is if A Recommends B and B Recommends C,
apt-get install A --no-transitive-recommends
would install B but not C.

This, please!

I should have noted previously (I apologize for not doing so) that the objections I have voiced to some of the proposals do not apply to this proposal. If having this type of option would be helpful (and if the maintainers of apt don't have objections to someone implementing this) than I also do have any objections as it doesn't cause any extra work for package maintainers in general and it doesn't change the way Recommends works for people who chose not to use this argument.

--
Soren Stoutner
soren@debian.org
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* Aaron Rainbolt <arraybolt3@gmail.com> [2024-11-08 00:21]:
[...]

However, this isn't that hard to rectify - rather than specifying the
depth at which apt should stop installing recommends, one can specify
the packages in the dependency tree from which apt should install
recommends from. I.e., to replicate --no-transitive-recommends, one
would do
`sudo apt install package --only-install-recommends-from=package`
(please someone pick a better name for this switch). If you're
installing a complex metapackage network, you can just specify all the metapackages you want to allow recommends from, i.e.
`sudo apt install metapackage --only-install-recommends-from=metapackage,submetapackage1,...`

[...]

I personally would consider a "apt install-recs", analogous to "apt build-dep", quite useful. That would require multiple steps instead of a single command, but allow installing the recommends for a specific package at any later time, which is also useful when they have changed over time or you change your mind about installing them.

- Fay

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On Fri, 8 Nov 2024 03:47:05 +0100, Fay Stegerman <flx@obfusk.net>
wrote:

I personally would consider a "apt install-recs", analogous to "apt build-dep",
quite useful. That would require multiple steps instead of a single command, >but allow installing the recommends for a specific package at any later time, >which is also useful when they have changed over time or you change your mind >about installing them.

Agreed! And I would also love the possibility to directly paste a
package list from apt show's output into apt install without having to
remove the commas.

Greetings
Marc
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marc Haber | " Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header Rhein-Neckar, DE | Beginning of Wisdom " |
Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fon: *49 6224 1600402

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On Fri, Nov 08, 2024 at 08:20:46AM +0100, IOhannes m zmölnig wrote:

Am 8. November 2024 06:42:25 MEZ schrieb Marc Haber <mh+debian-devel@zugschlus.de>:

Agreed! And I would also love the possibility to directly paste a
package list from apt show's output into apt install without having to >remove the commas.

This!

apt satisfy

--
WBR, wRAR

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Am 8. November 2024 06:42:25 MEZ schrieb Marc Haber <mh+debian-devel@zugschlus.de>:

Agreed! And I would also love the possibility to directly paste a
package list from apt show's output into apt install without having to
remove the commas.

This!


mfh.her.fsr
IOhannes

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On Fri, 8 Nov 2024 12:53:15 +0500, Andrey Rakhmatullin
<wrar@debian.org> wrote:

On Fri, Nov 08, 2024 at 08:20:46AM +0100, IOhannes m zmölnig wrote:

Am 8. November 2024 06:42:25 MEZ schrieb Marc Haber <mh+debian-devel@zugschlus.de>:

Agreed! And I would also love the possibility to directly paste a
package list from apt show's output into apt install without having to
remove the commas.

This!

apt satisfy

TIL. Thanks.

Greetings
Marc
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marc Haber | " Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header Rhein-Neckar, DE | Beginning of Wisdom " |
Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fon: *49 6224 1600402

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