Removing unneeded package dependencies on Unity

[Jeremy Bicha]

On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 11:24 AM, Pander <pander at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
> 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.

You framed the issue as an Ubuntu GNOME issue. So I suggest trying to
come up with a simpler test case than "I installed Ubuntu GNOME plus
other stuff and some of the other stuff depends on other stuff I don't
think I want.)

> Some systems have very scarce resources. That the library is not that
> big, is not a reason to get it installed automatically.

Sorry, Ubuntu GNOME does not support this theoretical computer that
can't install a 1MB library.

> Some examples are:

Those examples are from apps where there is clear upstream separation
between support for different GUIs. I don't think it makes sense to
have separate packages for "Pidgin with Unity" and "Pidgin without
Unity". How would we make sure that people get the right version for
them?

>   APT::Install-Recommends "false";

Turning recommends off globally is not supported.

https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html#s-binarydeps

If you can come up with a patch that does not cause regressions for
Unity users while helping users of other desktops, I and others would
be glad to review it. Otherwise, I don't see an issue here with some
apps depending on libunity.

Thanks,
Jeremy