On Sat 20 Jun 2020 at 16:51:12 -0600, Tom Dial wrote: > > > On 6/20/20 13:17, Andrei POPESCU wrote: > > > On Sb, 20 iun 20, 18:37:31, Brian wrote: > >> On Sat 20 Jun 2020 at 17:53:56 +0300, Andrei POPESCU wrote: > >> > >>> On Vi, 19 iun 20, 15:12:27, Tom Dial wrote: > >>>> > >>>> I notice that tasksel (= /usr/bin/tasksel) is a Perl program in which it > >>>> appears the "cmd" to be executed once selections are made (line 24 from > >>>> the end) is > >>>> > >>>> apt-get -q -y -o APT::Install-Recommends=true -o \ > >>>> APT::Get::AutomaticRemove=true -o APT::Acquire::Retries=3 install > >>>> > >>>> I suspect that has something to do with the apparent fact that tasksel > >>>> ignores "recommends=false" from other sources. I also suspect that > >>>> editing that line would change the behavior in the desired direction. > >>>> >From long-standing practice and inclination I have no wish to test this, > >>>> but someone else might. > >>>> > >>>> I assume this would need to be done by skipping tasksel during > >>>> installation of the d-i minimal system, then altering and running the > >>>> installed tasksel after the post-install reboot. > >>> > >>> Why not just run 'apt install task-<whatever>' afterwards? > >> > >> Without the suggested alteration made by Tom Dial? How does that fulfill > >> Richard's desired outcome of not installing recommended packages? > > > > As far as I know all tasks are now[1] metapackages that one can just > > install with apt, hence one doesn't need tasksel at all. > > This seems to be quite correct: apt would happily install each of the > tasksel-listed tasks as described. With "APT::Install-Recommends=false" > it will do it without the recommends.
Indeed. > I do wonder how appropriate or useful it would be to install these task > groups without the recommends, though. On my system (with gnome > installed), for instance, task-xfce-desktop would install 37 packages > exclusive of the recommends and 213 more with recommends included. I > have to think some of them would be useful almost to the point of necessity. > > Sometimes you have to be careful what you ask for, lest you get it, as > Mencken put it, good and hard. The changelog for debconf has * Install recommends by default. That's from 2009. Here is not the place to recount the history, but the reasons for the change are not trivial. > > If you are referring to the lack of '--no-install-recommends', I was > > under the impression that we are in the context of a system installed > > with 'recommends=false' preseeded, which as per your posting[2] is > > already configured to not install recommends. > > > > I just now realised that skipping the tasksel step completely makes > > 'recommends=false' optional (it's only use would be to get a system > > pre-configured to not install recommends), so one should add > > '--no-install-recommends' as needed to the above > > This approach is much better than hacking a file that a standard package > installed. Agreed. One may hope that Richard will see it in the same light. I am not sure that the only use for 'recommends=false' > ... would be to get a system pre-configured to not install > recommends ... It is possible that it is obeyed when preseeding with pkgsel and a late_command. Not having tried it, I wouldn't know. -- Brian.
