Removing single program from multi program packages

[Mike Jones]

Sorry to bring up old issues, but I ran across this brainstorm idea, and
wanted to bring it to the attention of the people who had discussed this
with me previously.

    Please see the link below

    http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/18704/

-Mike

On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 2:03 PM, Mike Jones <eternalorb at gmail.com> wrote:

> John,
>
>     I see now. I agree, man-power is better spent on things other than
> separating the free-cell game from the games package.  I was simply trying
> to figure out the reason why, and see if there was some way I could
> contribute to giving the users of Ubuntu more freedom on what they have on
> their system.
>
>     Thanks for clearing that up for me.
> -Mike
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 12:30 PM, John Carr <john.carr at unrouted.co.uk>wrote:
>
>> 2009/3/23 Mike Jones <eternalorb at gmail.com>:
>> > Hi guys. Thanks for your detailed replies.
>> >
>> >     I think I'm having a difficult time expressing what I'm trying to
>> get
>> > across. It's kind of a vague notion.
>> >
>> >     My problem isn't that for me its difficult to either just remove the
>> > package entirely (in this case, I don't play any of those games and
>> don't
>> > see a situation where I will want to for the foreseeable future. If it
>> > decide I want to, I will simply install the package again.) I understand
>> > that I can go to the terminal and remove or modify the portions of the
>> > system I want to manually. (I recommend that you not suggest that to
>> anyone
>> > in the future. 60% of my time using Ubuntu is in a terminal, and I am
>> more
>> > than aware that mucking around in the system is a *bad* idea. I don't
>> know
>> > what files to modify in what order, and I doubt that it would be easy to
>> > find the information within 5 minutes).
>> >
>> >     The problem isn't that the space required for these packages is
>> > bothersome. I'm fortunate enough to have relatively new hardware and
>> plenty
>> > of storage. The space needed for those extra games is effectively
>> trivial
>> > for me.
>> >
>> >     In terms of repackaging the programs: I am more than appreciative of
>> > those who spend their time packaging programs for Ubuntu. Even those who
>> > package programs I don't use are appreciated. You're right. It would be
>> > futile for me to repackage the collection of programs for my own
>> personal
>> > use. That would be silly.
>> >
>> >     So I wanted to emphasise that I'm not a nieve user. I am a Software
>> > Engineering student, and spend a large amount of time doing software
>> > development at my job. I know a decent approximation of how the various
>> > components that I concern myself with work. Well enough to know what I
>> need
>> > to look up, anyway.
>> >
>> >     I think I really wanted to get across was "Whats keeping
>> > apt/aptitude/gdebi/synaptic/add-remove/ what-have-you from being able to
>> > cherry pick components of a package? Is there some hard and fast
>> technical
>> > limitation? Would anyone like to offer suggestions to me for where I can
>> > look into improving the system? Is it feasable to do so?" Any time my
>> tools
>> > (In this case add-remove, or the other front-ends for the package
>> manager)
>> > tell me I can't do something I know I should be able to do, I'm
>> bothered. A
>> > non-advanced user is going to see that message reply and say "Well why
>> the
>> > hell can't I remove one of them? Just delete it!" I know they will. I
>> heard
>> > my brother screaming that the other day when he couldn't remove who
>> knows
>> > what. It is non-intuitive to not be able to remove or add single
>> programs,
>> > and instead be told to install entire packages. I understand the
>> realistic
>> > reasons why this is so, but it doesn't stop me from gritting my teeth
>> from
>> > what I see as an annoyance.
>> >
>> >     I think that I was able to get myself across a little better. Let me
>> > know if I was confusing still.
>> >
>> > -Mike
>> >
>> > On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 9:43 AM, Loïc Martin <loic.martin3 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Mike Jones wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>>    Is there just no way for a package maintaner to not have extra work
>> >>> piled on their already hefty load while at the same time we allow a
>> user of
>> >>> Ubuntu to remove most traces of a program in a package with multiple
>> >>> programs without having to also remove the rest of them? Is it worth
>> doing
>> >>> even if its possible? I think I'm in a somewhat unique position of
>> having
>> >>> extreme distaste whenever my system tells me I can't do something in a
>> >>> counter intuitive way.
>> >>
>> >> You can remove the program and keep the other ones in the package
>> actually
>> >> - nothing is preventing you to do so, even the system. The cleanest
>> solution
>> >> would be for you to repackage gnome-games (or whatever name the package
>> is
>> >> called) for your personal use, while excluding the programs you don't
>> want.
>> >>
>> >> Quite a lot of work for absolutely no gain, but could we expect Ubuntu
>> >> developers and package maintainers to spend days doing that for us
>> while we
>> >> wouldn't spend the same amount of time ourselves (including the time
>> >> googling for howtos and such)? Especially when they already have far
>> more
>> >> critical bugs to address (like when the programs don't even run, or
>> when
>> >> people can't install Ubuntu or run it on their machines ;) ).
>> >>
>> >> But all in all, nothing is preventing you to do what you want to
>> achieve.
>> >>
>> >> Fact is, the way it's done now allows easy upgrades for millions of
>> people
>> >> who are quite please to see the selection of programs updated for each
>> >> release, while said programs only take a few kb of space on their
>> drives.
>> >> And to be fair, when people are complaining they can't remove foo
>> without
>> >> removing bar or ubuntu-desktop, I always wonder why they point to
>> programs
>> >> that only takes a few kB of space while being oblivious to the hundreds
>> of
>> >> MB taken by fonts, translations, libraries, system utilities,
>> drivers...
>> >> they'd never use in a lifetime, but that are invaluable because they
>> make
>> >> peripherals, foreign languages documents and other things work out of
>> the
>> >> box in Linux.
>> >>
>> >> For space-constrained drives, there's Damn Small Linux, and if we were
>> >> shooting for that goal I'm not so sure you'd find so many developers
>> and
>> >> packagers in Ubuntu.
>> >>
>> >> If unused programs are really an issue but you're not so tight on space
>> to
>> >> use DSL, the Ubuntu server install could probably address your needs
>> better
>> >> - just chose all the programs that you need one by one, and you'd  end
>> up
>> >> with far less programs than you'd have just trying to get rid of
>> individual
>> >> programs in multi-program packages that show in the menus. Such a
>> difference
>> >> it wouldn't be funny.
>> >>
>> >> Loďc
>>
>> Hi Mike
>>
>> Cherry picking parts of a package is bad for the same reason that
>> going in and using rm by hand is bad. The goal of the package manager
>> is to keep your system in a sane state and allow you add, remove and
>> update things without making it so you cant boot. But with cherry
>> picking, the package manager has no way of knowing if you removing
>> part of a package means that another package or another application or
>> library within the current package will carry on working.
>>
>> So could synaptic automatically work out the dependencies? Well maybe
>> for applications it can see what libraries are linked against. And
>> maybe it can scan for files that are referenced. But i think there
>> will always be things it cant resolve, it will always be a bit fragile
>> etc. So humans will have to maintain the data that describes these
>> 'sub packages'.
>>
>> Of course you can disregard the above paragraph because deb packages
>> already support this. You have a single source package and it can
>> build the tarball and then there are .install files that say 'these
>> files belong with this game, and these files belong with this game'.
>> Each install file is just a list of files that the build process made
>> that belong in a given package. Then you get exactly the behaviour you
>> want, safely. But its more work for the maintainers, as already
>> described.
>>
>> Does that make sense? This is not a technical limitation of the
>> packaging format, more of a limitation of man power.
>>
>> John
>>
>
>
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