[Mageia-dev] installing minimal is not really that minimal

Thu Mar 22 13:07:50 CET 2012

On 22.03.2012 10:48, Anne nicolas wrote:
+> 2012/3/22 Thierry Vignaud<thierry.vignaud at gmail.com>:
+>> On 22 March 2012 09:31, You-Cheng Hsieh<yochenhsieh at gmail.com>  wrote:
+>>>> note that having a couple x11 package is not installing x11.
+>>>> I've made the minimal install quite a lot smaller.
+>>>>
+>>>> We still have issues with suggests that makes installation explodes.
+>>>> I've reports some bugs but maintainers just don't care.
+>>>> See eg: https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4357 that got
+>>>> reaffected to me because the maintainer doesn't care about
+>>>> bloating the install
+>>>> This particular one isn't about minimal install but about gnome install
+>>>> but the underlying issue will bloats any minimal install + light desktop
+>>>> + _one_ gtk+ application.
+>>>>
+>>> Both gnome-keyring and task-gnome are maintained by nobody, could you
+>>> modify the spec and close the bug?
+>> I've made quite some changes for mga2 in order to bring minimal
+>> install under control.
+>> But that can't work in the long term.
+>> I'ven't enough time&  I cannot do it alone.
+>> I did it twice back @mdv and yet people keep introduced new interesting
+>> ways to bloat again.
+>>
+>> I don't want to imply Olav did it. But he's packager of one of the offending
+>> packages, and so inherited part of mdv heritage.
+>> So I wrote a bug about it in order to pull maintainers in.
+>>
+>> Every packager should be made aware of Implications of:
+>> - suggests
+>> - library requiring the tools they were created for
+>>
+>> It's easy to add a suggest ("hey it'll just make the user experience better"),
+>> but eventually the suggested package can start a cycles that will pull
+>> quite a lot more packages.
+>>
+>> See https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4357#c5
+>> systemd was initially pulling:
+>> - the whole gtk+ stack,
+>> - openldap,
+>> - avahi,
+>> - gamin,
+>> - fuse,
+>> - colord,
+>> - gnome-keyring,
+>> - seahorse,
+>> - dirmngr
+>> - python
+>>
+>> And none of it (but python) has actually to do with systemd.
+>> It was just that required library actually suggest or requires another one
+>> which also suggested or required ...
+>>
+>> Everyone should be concerned about that.
+>>
+>> I've broke some requires/suggest cycles, but I cannot do it alone,
+>> everyone should contribute (and also should try not to introduce
+>> new ones)
+>>
+>> I think that some of those "comfort" suggests should be moved
+>> from some low level library or tool package to task-<desktop>
+>> packages.
+>>
+>> Thus no I won't fix every issue.
+>> People have to test install and have to get interested in reducing
+>> size of install.
+>> This is not a personal attack against Olav that does a good job.
+>> That means for everyone to get in the implications of requires&
+>> suggests.
+>> Not looking only at that particular package but at the global view,
+>> the installed system.
+>>
+>> Not all suggests will bloat installing from DVD as some won't make
+>> it into the DVD image. But some will b/c they're required by other
+>> packages and thus will succeed in being suggested.
+>>
+>> Minimal install won't be as perfect as installing basesystem with urpmi
+>> because of installer also pulling packages needed for HW (eg: LVM,
+>> SMP, bluetooth, ...)
+>>
+>> At least for mga2, it's has been reduced.
+>> But it could be more.
+>>
+>> Also installing a desktop (GNOME&  KDE) is huge these days.
+>> Something should be made about it.
+>> Maybe splitting task-{gnome,kde}-networking and the like and moving
+>> them under CAT_NETWORK, CAT_OFFICE, CAT_GAMES, CAT_INTERNET,
+>> CAT_MULTIMEDIA and the like in rpmsrate.
+>>
+>> But this is the job of everyone.
+>> Not just me.
+>>
+>> My 2 cents
+> Thanks for your proposal. But anyway this is for Mageia 3. Could we
+> please calm down and focus again on coming release? We do have work
+> enough for everybody :)
+>
+> Cheers
+>
+Yes, I completely agree.
+
+This is a key value for the quality of distro. We can't force everyone 
+to use in the most minimal setup for example rmt ("Provides certain 
+programs with access to remote tape devices.") as a requirement of cpio 
+and so rpm! or sound scripts as a requirement of init-scripts...
+
+I have got a remote server and I really don't want to be forced to have 
+full sound support, themed boolloader and rmt support on that computer.
+
+This is a goal for Mga3, I have in mind some tools to help resolving the 
+dependency hell.
+