Removing ubuntu-base?

[Stephen Ryan]

On Mon, 7 Feb 2005 03:55:05 +0200, Rami Kayyali <r.kayyali at gmail.com> wrote:
> But isn't that more of a hassle?

More of a hassle than what?  I suggested this as a replacement for
having to remember to put those packages back before upgrading and
remembering to remove them again afterwards.  Once the dummy package
is installed, it's there until you remove it, and you can do the
upgrades with no extra steps.

>  I mean, if I want to remove a couple
> of packages then that's fine, but what if I want to remove more
> packages? I'm starting to wish Debian had something similar to USE
> flags for satisfying dependencies, maybe something like:
> 
> USE="-postfix -dhcp3-client" apt-get install ubuntu-base.
> 
> Isn't there anything similar?

Not that I know of; since you may fill the Provides: line with as many
package names as you like (well, there probably is a limit, but as it
seems to be as long as the dependency list on ubuntu-base, it is
larger than would be prudent to do all at once), there is very little
incentive to rewrite dpkg to handle the extra bookkeeping needed to
cut four lines down to one.  Part of the reason is that dpkg does a
consistency check on the database before each operation, so that
run-time flags won't do the trick; you have to store that information
in the package database anyway.  (If you're not aware of it, dpkg is
the low-level tool that apt-get, dselect, aptitude and synaptic use to
do the actual installation and removal of packages.)

There is a philosophical angle to it, as well.  Overriding
dependencies is dangerous; they were generally put there because the
package maintainer knew or discovered that the system broke without
it.  In this case, you are removing some pieces that either are not
necessary for proper functioning (dhcp3-client), or are easily
replaced (postfix).  You are still, however, breaking the base Ubuntu
installation, and you get to keep both pieces if it breaks.  Some
things ought to be hard, and breaking your system is high on that list
:-)

Honestly, I think that if you really end up wanting to replace "many"
packages from the Ubuntu base, you'd really be better off installing
one of the "construction-kit" distributions, such as Gentoo, Slackware
or Debian.  The Ubuntu distribution is made by choosing various
packages from Debian, making sure they work well together and setting
good defaults.  Most of the  code and bug-fixes from Ubuntu are sent
back to Debian, so if you're going to go to the work of choosing
different packages, you might as well just start with a clean Debian
installation and not worry about having to work around the fact that
you have to override Ubuntu's choices all the time.