... because
aptitude --without-recommends some_package
will (surprisingly) deinstall any recommendations installed by other
packages.
The base problem is that aptitude tries to stick with a general policy
about whether to install recommended packages or not. It should have a
per-package policy.
Example:
On my root server, I wish to install kernel-sources and udev.
kernel-sources recommends gcc. That's a recommendation I wish to accept.
If I ever uninstall kernel-sources, I also wish to have gcc removed,
since I'm not compiling anything beyond the kernel sources, so gcc
should remain an automatic dependency.
udev depends on hotfix, which in turn recommends usbutils. This is a
recommendation I wish to decline, because the server doesn't have a USB
port (and if it had, I wouldn't be able or want to use it - the server
is miles away from where I'm living).
The command line is a bit too weak anyway. I can foresee the day when I
want to install a package with two recommends, one of them I wish
installed, the other I don't. In the GUI I can handle that case without
a problem (simply deselect the second recommend), on the command line,
I'd have to install and uninstall, which runs the risk of having a
not-so-perfect uninstall script muck up the system.
(I'm not sure whether this should have gone into a separate bug report.
Feel free to split issues as you wish.)
Regards,
Jo
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