Recommended and Suggested packages

[Sebastian Heinlein]

Quoting Phillip Susi <psusi at cfl.rr.com>:

> Ok, so synaptic now auto installs recommends?  I'd still prefer it 
> prompt the user and allow them to choose not to.  Also the add 
> applications applet needs to do this as that is that the average user 
> will use to install things and they won't be able to figure out why 
> they don't work properly.

No, it doesn't behave like this for all packages yet. But Synaptic has got an
option in its settings that allow to treat recommends as depenedencies. It is
not turned on by default and different to the implementation in apt.

If a package is not of use the user it should not be a recommended. The 
average
should expect that he gets a fully working application. If a package only
provides additional features but is not essential for running the 
programme, it
won't be a dependency but a recommended package. E.g. the GNOME archive 
manager
doesn't depend on zip, since it works without it. But what is an archive
manager that cannot handle zip files by default?

There will also be an option to turn the new behavior off - perhaps not a
grafical one, but there will be one.

Cheers,

Sebastian

----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.