latest update needs ridiculous new packages

[Derek Broughton]

Willy K. Hamra wrote:

> Derek Broughton wrote:
>> Willy Hamra wrote:
>> 
>>> kubuntu-desktop has been installed ever since i did the fresh
>>> install of intrepid about a month ago. i always had kubuntu-desktop,
>>> and i'm sure these new packages weren't installed, or had any similar
>>> package installed so they can replace it. they are new dependencies.
>> 
>> Ah.
>> 
>> $ apt-cache depends kubuntu-desktop | grep blue
>>   Recommends: bluez-cups
>>   Recommends: bluez-utils
>>   Recommends: kdebluetooth
>> 
>> Since I use aptitude, I get all the "recommends" automatically (and
>> setting aptitude to _not_ pull "recommends" has other unwanted side
>> effects), so strictly speaking, I would think the adept updater wouldn't
>> have given me
>> these while aptitude full-upgrade would.  otoh, I thought I'd upgraded to
>> hardy via adept.
> 
> i very rarely use adept or synaptic, i used to use apt-get and with
> intrepid now i use aptitude, and it never installed the recommends for
> me, it would always tell me that some packages are recommended but will
> not be installed. 

That's configurable in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/, and maybe doesn't default to
installing Recommends, any more, but it certainly used to.  What I've found
though, is that turning it off doesn't just turn it off for _future_
installs, but treats everything that was installed as a "recommend" as
being no longer needed - and wants to remove it, so I'm either stuck with
that or will have to go to a lot of trouble to mark the ones I want as
manually installed.
-- 
derek