On Sat 12 Feb 2022 at 17:03:06 (+0100), Stella Ashburne wrote: > I did a minimal install of LXQt: > > sudo apt install lxqt-core lightdm > > and discovered that the following two packages were installed as well: > > libthai-data/stable,now 0.1.28-3 all [installed,automatic] > libthai0/stable,now 0.1.28-3 amd64 [installed,automatic]
Installing those two would add 170 more packages to my system, so I presume quite a lot more besides those two were installed on yours. > *I do not speak or write Thai* Nor I. > When I did the following > > sudo apt remove libthai* > > I was very surprised to see that many packages that I think are essential to > running Debian properly would be removed if I answered "Yes" to the question > "Do you want to continue?" > > What should I do? You should type: $ apt-cache rdepends libthai0 and notice that the printed list includes libpango-1.0-0. So now type: $ apt-cache rdepends libpango-1.0-0 | less and that shows the cause of your problem. Whether or not you read Thai, in order to typeset a document that contains, say, an aphorism in a foreign language, you need to at least know how to lay out that language, which includes how its words break or are spaced. >From a very superficial reading of APT-ish metadata, I'd guess that you might have spotted the language Thai because there are some wrinkles in pango's support for it, and perhaps those led to libthai* being linked to it. Anyway, the upshot is that you'll have a job to run a system without pango's support for text. > What is the best course of action? Leave it. Worry about bigger issues than the odd library. Cheers, David.
