On 01/03/2026 at 00:36, Jeremy Bícha wrote:
I noticed a subtle difference today. I installed Debian in Hebrew
today with the Testing net installer. I chose Hebrew because it is one
of the several languages that currently has a -desktop and a
-gnome-desktop. (Many languages currently do not have both of these.)
If I installed GNOME and Debian desktop, task-hebrew,
task-hebrew-desktop, and task-hebrew-gnome-desktop were installed. If
I deselected Debian desktop and only installed GNOME (and standard
system utilities), task-hebrew was installed but neither of the hebrew
desktop tasks were installed.
What makes things complicated is that there are two layers of dependencies:
- tasksel task dependencies (Parent, Enhances...)
- apt/dpkg task package dependencies (Depends, Recommends...)
E.g. with gnome and hebrew tasks (only relevant dependencies are shown):
Task: desktop
Key: task-desktop
Task: gnome-desktop
Parent: desktop
Key: task-gnome-desktop
Task: hebrew-desktop
Enhances: desktop, hebrew
Key: task-hebrew-desktop
Task: hebrew-gnome-desktop
Enhances: gnome-desktop, hebrew-desktop
Key: task-hebrew-gnome-desktop
Package: task-desktop
Recommends: task-gnome-desktop | task-xfce-desktop (...)
Package: task-gnome-desktop
Depends: task-desktop
Task dependencies are described in tasksel README:
Key:
"The Key field lists packages that are essential to the task. If those
packages are not available, then the task will not be available either."
Enhances:
"If a task has a Enhances field, then it should only be installed if all
the tasks listed as in that field are installed. (...) Such tasks are
hidden from the menu."
Parent:
"Tasks can be children of a parent task, indicated by using the Parent
field. (...) This only controls the display; child tasks are displayed
nested underneath the parent. (...) Selecting the parent task does not
select any or all of the child tasks, nor does selecting a child task
ensure that the parent task is installed."
So task gnome-desktop does not pull task desktop, tasks hebrew-desktop
and hebrew-gnome-desktop are not pulled and no package dependency pulls
packages task-hebrew-desktop and task-hebrew-gnome-desktop.
This behavior feels like a bug to me.
It would feel logical to me that Parent: pulls the parent task too.
