Kyle J. McDonald wrote: >> From another discussion on the board today, I understand that not >> all dependencies are actually recorded in the packages. > > But there are some things I've found recently while trying to > customize the packages installed by my jumpstart that I find realy > really strange: > > 1. Why does the GNOME Accessibility libraries > package(SUNWgnome-a11y-libs) depend on SUNWzoneu and SUNWzoner? What > does GNOME acessibility have to do with Zones? >
That one seems like a simple bug. > 2. Why does the DHCP server cluster SUNWCdhcp depend on things from > WBEM like SUNWwbcou. And then SUNWwbcou (which appears to only be a > bunch of softlinks unless I'm reading it wrong...) requires me to > install SUNWjsnmp, SUNWaudit, and SUNWwbapi. Now SUNWwbapi requires > SUNWadmj. > > I should be able to run a DHCP server with out WBEM and all the > bagage it drags with it shouldn't I? Even if I install the SUNWwbcou > and SUNWwbapi, it's not like WBEM is going to work with out the rest > of it. > > I can understand Some users wanting the DHCP server to be managable > through WBEM. But it shouldn't be required. > That one I can explain; we actually use some underlying libraries from the wbem package to handle updates to the hosts tables from the DHCP management tools. The granularity there unfortunately ends up dragging in some other stuff. > 3. Why do many clusters not include all the packages they really > need? I expect to beable to pick a cluster and have it include > everything needed. Is that unreasonable? Examples: > > Why when I add SUNWClp doesn't it add things like SUNWTiff and > SUNWjpg that the packages in the cluster need? > > Why does SUNWCxwrte not include SUNWxwpl, even though it does include > SUNWxwplr and SUNWxwplt? > Sound like bugs to me. > 4. Why are some packages like SUNWintgige (Intel PRO/1000 Server > Adapter Driver) not unselectable? Shouldn't they only be required if > I have that hardware? > It's not unselectable because it's in the minimum required metacluster. I don't know offhand why that should be the case. > 5. I'm sure this isn't simple, but why does installing SUNWj5rt > (which is required now by so many things.) force me to install parts > of X11, CDE, ToolTalk, Motif? Even on a headless server? Shouldn't I > only need these other packages if I need to use Java graphically? > That might be possible, but typically there's cost to us in engineering things to be pluggable in a way that accommodates functional dependencies being optional, and I'm not at all sure that Java has been engineered in that fashion. Also, in this case specifically, I suspect that the printing support in Java may require some of those libraries. > I'm sure there are more examples... Some of this just makes no sense. > Yes, I'm sure there are, and I'm sure some of it is complete nonsense. I'm not sure that most package developers put much effort into identifying appropriate dependencies to begin with, but even then it's really hard to identify and maintain them with the toolset we have right now, so it's hard to fault the developers. Dave
