a 1.4 MB package recommended 230 MB of packages :|

[Tom H]

On Sun, Apr 11, 2010 at 3:20 PM, Clay Weber <claydoh at midmaine.com> wrote:
> Ric Moore wrote:

>>>> i understand recommends are kinda neat to have, i used to install most
>>>> of them before the default apt policy was changed to install recommends
>>>> by default, but this.... is just extreme. i can not imagine what a
>>>> regular user with no expertise would do if he was required to install
>>>> asciidoc, i was *shocked* to see 230 MB for such a simple program. took
>>>> me till next day to remember checking if recommends are playing a game
>>>> on me, and lo and behold, asciidoc just requires 1.4 MB.. lol
>>>> sorry for the somewhat *rant*ish message, but recommends should be
>>>> somehow explained, and giving the user a choice.
>>>
>>> That was using apt -- what about aptitude - does it also install recommends without giving the
>>> user a say?
>>
>> I don't>think<  that synaptic does that... I could be wrong as heck
>> though. Ric
>
> It should, as it is still using apt underneath. There is a way to
> configure apt to *not* install recommends by default, basically undoing
> what Ubuntu re-configured from Debian defaults, but I cannot remember
> what to change right now.

Both Debian and Ubuntu and both apt-get and aptitude default to
installing "recommends" unless you override it temporarily at the
command or permanently (unless you override the override at the
command) in /etc/apt/apt.conf or /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/<file>.