Removing unneeded package dependencies on Unity

[Pander]

On 2017-03-04 16:05, Jeremy Bicha wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 9:51 AM, Pander <pander at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
>> For all packages listed in this tab-separated file, can these be
>> inspected and requested to drop or lessen the Unity dependency?
> 
> Several of those apps are not part of a new, default Ubuntu GNOME
> 17.04 (Beta) install. I recommend starting from a new install (or the
> live daily iso).

Thanks for your reply. I got this information from
  http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/*/*/source/Sources.gz

Even if you start out with the iso, in daily usage, you have access to
all packages via apt-get. It is not so much the starting collection from
the iso, more as what can get pulled in.

>> PS  See also similar current bug reports:
> 
> Why do you have a problem with libunity9 being installed? It doesn't
> take up and much space and just enables better Unity integration.
> Since the app is compiled against the libunity library, it must depend
> on it.

I simply don't see why e.g. Pidgin needs that specific dependency as it
also runs in other window managers. In the past me and other people had
conflicts with packages pulled in that were blocking deinstallation of
other packages. At the moment, libunity9 is only pulling in a few others.

Suppose a maintainer of Unity decides to make more dependencies, more
packages are pulled in. Now libunity9 also needs
libunity-scopes-json-def-desktop and libunity-protocol-private0.

Some systems have very scarce resources. That the library is not that
big, is not a reason to get it installed automatically. I understand
that packages are compiled against Unity for better integration, that
that is fine but it should be done in such way that if you don't have
Unity, it doesn't matter to have Unity packages installed.

If you want to use the Unity integration, for sure you will have Unity
libraries installed on your system as you are running Unity already. ;-)

What if, for better integration, GNOME and KDE and Unity and
Enlightenment and FXCE and Fluxbox and LXDE all need to have their core
libs installed for each GUI application? That would make it one big
bundle of compulsory packages you get on each machine. There are plenty
of mechanisms in place to check if libraries are there or not and use
them dynamically. Otherwise, that part (if it is that specific) needs to
get split off.

Some examples are:
  libreoffice-gnome
  libreoffice-kde
  network-manager-gnome
  vim-gnome
  dia-gnome
  clamtk-gnome
  routeplanner-gnome

Most GUI applications can interact with the top bar, notification bar or
whatever in the running window manager has to offer, without having any
hard package dependencies.

I don't have anything against Unity or one package more or less, only I
do not want the risk that for one application, in the future like as in
the past, a dependency one one Unity package drags along many other
Unity packages for an integration I and others will never use.

The idea behind it is "You gotta keep 'em separated".

If one has in /etc/apt/apt.conf the lines

  APT::Install-Recommends "false";
  APT::Install-Suggests "false";

already much is held back. So fine tuning the dependencies to recommends
would install Unity libs for most users and Pidgin and Thunderbird will
run in GNOME with and without Unity libs.

(Sorry for the lengthy rational, but in the past some deps were root
cause for many unhappy GNOME users on Ubuntu.)

> 
> Thanks,
> Jeremy