On 2012-07-11 14:33, Gergely Nagy wrote: > "Eugene V. Lyubimkin" <jac...@debian.org> writes: > > > Moreover, despite me understanding the picture, I still > > has no clean, safe and documented way to do what I'd want in case the > > package maintainer chosed Depends. > > You have: install the pieces you want by hand. That's at least clean and > safe. I do not think it is worth documenting explicitly.
No, this is (IMO) not a solution: [1] > >> > Using Recommends for non-core parts of > >> > metapackages' dependencies would nicely solve that. > >> > >> ...but I disagree that making meta-packages more elastic is a "nice" > >> solution: is a hack covering over misguided users. Possible solutions > >> could be improved documentation and improved design of package managers. > > > > ... And I disagree with that. No solution can override policy's "all > > Depends must be satisfied". If one choose to support the "exclude from > > metapackage" one either has to change the policy, remove packages from > > Depends or use non-stock metapackage (which I personally don't like). > > [...] Demoting to Recommends would be > less so, but if upstream considers a package a core part of a platform, > recommends *is* wrong. If you disagree with upstream, you have the tools > and the ability to customize your system: use a non-stock meta package. Well, disagreed here. By the logic above we, for example, cannot apply any patches NACKed by upstream. > It's not hard. I'd be very curious why you're so against it, perhaps we > can come up with a solution that satisfies you? Because if a user who installed Debian yesterday asks me "So how do I do that?" I want my answer to be "It's easy, just do '$packagemanager remove $singlepackage'" instead of "It's easy, just build and maintain a non-stock meta package" [1] a) and b) here: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2012/07/msg00237.html -- Eugene V. Lyubimkin aka JackYF, JID: jackyf.devel(maildog)gmail.com C++ GNU/Linux developer, Debian Developer -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120711153006.GB7554@r500-debian