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

[Kamil Rytarowski]

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.