build-essential

[Jeff Waugh]

<quote who="Scott James Remnant">

> 99.9% of our "users" won't need vi, emacs, fetchmail, procmail, ttf-
> malayalam-fonts, ttf-bangla-fonts, python-egenix-mxproxy, python-opengl,
> reiser4progs, lvm10, lvm2, evms, dmidecode, strace, etc.

Lots of those are Base packages. Others are there for specific goals (i18n,
python everywhere, etc).

> Desktop has never been about creating a system for "99.9% of our users",
> but creating a sensible desktop for everybody.

s/everybody/the greatest common factor of our users/

> Right now a compiler is an essential part of a Linux machine, as many
> people are going to bitch about it being missing as much as those who'd
> bitch about (e.g.) a web browser being missing.

The thing is, you're putting it in the wrong terms. The Ubuntu desktop is
not defined by the fact that it's "a Linux machine", and all the baggage
that phrase means to you. It's a desktop OS. A desktop OS doesn't need a
compiler.

- Jeff

-- 
linux.conf.au 2005: Canberra, Australia                http://linux.conf.au/
 
                           No clue is good clue.