a 1.4 MB package recommended 230 MB of packages :|

[Nigel Ridley]

On 04/10/2010 06:11 PM, William Hamra wrote:
> willy at willy:~$ sudo aptitude install asciidoc
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information... Done
> Reading extended state information
> Initialising package states... Done
> The following NEW packages will be installed:
>    asciidoc dblatex{a} docbook-dsssl{a} docbook-utils{a} docbook-xsl{a}
> docbook-xsl-doc-html{a}
>    dvipdfmx{a} jadetex{a} lacheck{a} latex-beamer{a} latex-xcolor{a}
> libkpathsea4{a} libostyle1c2{a}
>    libsgmls-perl{a} lmodern{a} openjade{a} pgf{a} preview-latex-style{a}
> prosper{a} ps2eps{a}
>    sgmlspl{a} tex-common{a} texlive{a} texlive-base{a}
> texlive-base-bin{a} texlive-base-bin-doc{a}
>    texlive-common{a} texlive-doc-base{a} texlive-extra-utils{a}
> texlive-fonts-recommended{a}
>    texlive-fonts-recommended-doc{a} texlive-generic-extra{a}
> texlive-generic-recommended{a}
>    texlive-humanities{a} texlive-humanities-doc{a} texlive-latex-base{a}
> texlive-latex-base-doc{a}
>    texlive-latex-extra{a} texlive-latex-extra-doc{a}
> texlive-latex-recommended{a}
>    texlive-latex-recommended-doc{a} texlive-math-extra{a}
> texlive-pictures{a} texlive-pictures-doc{a}
>    texlive-pstricks{a} texlive-pstricks-doc{a} tipa{a} xmlto{a}
> 0 packages upgraded, 48 newly installed, 0 to remove and 46 not upgraded.
> Need to get 231MB of archives. After unpacking 458MB will be used.
> Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] n
> Abort.
> willy at willy:~$ sudo aptitude install asciidoc --without-recommends
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information... Done
> Reading extended state information
> Initialising package states... Done
> The following NEW packages will be installed:
>    asciidoc
> The following packages are RECOMMENDED but will NOT be installed:
>    dblatex docbook-utils xmlto
> 0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 46 not upgraded.
> Need to get 1,478kB of archives. After unpacking 4,420kB will be used.
> Writing extended state information... Done
> 0% [Connecting to archive.ubuntu.com]^C
> willy at willy:~$
>
>
> i understand recommends are kinda neat to have, i used to install most
> of them before the default apt policy was changed to install recommends
> by default, but this.... is just extreme. i can not imagine what a
> regular user with no expertise would do if he was required to install
> asciidoc, i was *shocked* to see 230 MB for such a simple program. took
> me till next day to remember checking if recommends are playing a game
> on me, and lo and behold, asciidoc just requires 1.4 MB.. lol
> sorry for the somewhat *rant*ish message, but recommends should be
> somehow explained, and giving the user a choice.
>


That was using apt -- what about aptitude - does it also install recommends without giving the 
user a say?