Update "Recommends"

[Keith]

On 12/11/23 12:31 AM, Grizzlly via ubuntu-users wrote:
> Sunday, December 10, 2023  at 11:29, Keith wrote:
> Re: Update "Recommends" (at least in part)
> 
>> On 12/10/23 12:31 AM, Grizzlly via ubuntu-users wrote:
>>> Hi
> 
>>> Lately when I run
>   
>>> $sudo apt full-upgrade
>   
>>> when it get down to "WaterFox" I get an odd (or it seems so) recomending
>>> WaterFox "Wayland", my system is X11, my WaterFox is kpe version on Unity
>>> 23.10, I have not yet seen it on 22.04.3 but that is due an update today so it
>>> may come
>   
>>> Ideas ??
>   
>> Can you post of snippet of apt's output relevant to installing a
>> recommended package dependency during an upgrade? I didn't think that
>> was supposed to happen on an upgrade action, but then again I don't use
>> the "full-upgrade" command very often to know for sure.
> 
> I just re-ran full-upgrade (on the 23.10 system) because WineHQ had released a
> 9.0rc1, this tome I didn't see the waterfox prompt, I guess because it is (for
> now) fully updated
> 
>> Also, posting the "Depends:" and "Recommends:" lines from "apt show
>> waterfox" could be helpful.
> 
> Package: waterfox-g-kpe
> Version: 6.0.6-0+229.1
> Depends: libasound2 (>= 1.1.0), libatk1.0-0 (>= 1.12.4), libc6 (>= 2.35), libcairo-gobject2 (>= 1.10.0), libcairo2 (>= 1.10.0), libdbus-1-3 (>= 1.9.14), libdbus-glib-1-2 (>= 0.78), libfontconfig1 (>= 2.12.6), libfreetype6 (>= 2.3.5), libgcc-s1 (>= 4.2), libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0 (>= 2.22.0), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.37.0), libgtk-3-0 (>= 3.13.7), libharfbuzz0b (>= 0.6.0), libpango-1.0-0 (>= 1.22.0), libpangocairo-1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0), libstdc++6 (>= 12), libx11-6, libx11-xcb1 (>= 2:1.7.5), libxcb-shm0, libxcb1, libxcomposite1 (>= 1:0.4.5), libxcursor1 (>> 1.1.2), libxdamage1 (>= 1:1.1), libxext6, libxfixes3, libxi6, libxrandr2 (>= 2:1.4.0), libxrender1, libxtst6
> Suggests: fonts-lyx, pulseaudio, kwaterfoxhelper, waterfox-g-wayland, ffmpeg
> Breaks: waterfox-g3-kpe (<< 4.1.1-0~), waterfox-g4-kpe (<< 4.1.1-0~)
> Replaces: waterfox-g3-kpe (<< 4.1.1-0~), waterfox-g4-kpe (<< 4.1.1-0~)

Was it the waterfox-g-wayland package that was recommended? That has a 
"Suggests:" dependency, though, so it shouldn't be installed as part of 
an upgrade action especially since the default apt policy is to not 
install packages as Suggests: dependencies at all. You actually have to 
add "--install-suggests" to the command line to do it unless you modify 
the policy in the system apt configuration.

I'm afraid I don't see an obvious reason for the prompt unless maybe it 
originated from a debconf template. Hard to tell without the actual 
output from apt. Apt's log file /var/log/apt/history.log may contain a 
clue though.

> 
>> Anyhow, using "apt upgrade --only-upgrade" should update existing
>> packages without installing any new ones.
> 
> I've always been which "UpGrade" is best in my case (upgrade, dist-upgrade or
> full-upgrade) I went with "full" because it removes (most) unused apps

I'm the opposite. I usually just use upgrade because it's more 
conservative as it only installs new packages when needed, but doesn't 
remove any. I've been bitten in the past by an overzealous psychotic 
package manager (aptitude) that removed over half of the installed 
packages on my system one time because I didn't fully appreciate the 
consequences of the solution it offered when I wanted remove a gnome 
application I didn't use. Of course, aptitude is not apt, but I'm still 
wary of letting the package manager remove a package without me first 
reviewing the change.

-- 
Keith