Russ Allbery writes ("Re: Depends/Recommends from libraries"):
> It still feels like needless complexity to me,
Here is an example I just found.
Try, in a fresh stretch chroot
apt-get --no-install-recommends install libgtkspell-dev
Which you might reasonably do because you were building something
which linked against libgtk-spell. Or because you installed some
portmanteau package like ocaml-libs.
-dev libraries are typically installed because you want to build
something, not necessarily because you wanted to _use_ the features of
the runtime library.
The list that comes out is humungous and contains many things that you
probably didn't want.
aspell ? Well, at least the connection is clear, although it's
clearly wrong to get it.
fontconfig ? Probably pulled in pointlessly by one of the other
librararies.
dictionaries-common ? That's a waste of a download.
emacsen-common ? Wow.
libgtk2.0-dev, which lots of things obviously build-depend on, pulls
in fontconfig and gnome-icon-theme (a 10Mby download). I can't
believe you need gnome-icon-theme installed to compile gtk2 programs.
Ian.
