Metapackages and recommends

hhh · 2015-03-25 03:15:39

I've used xfce4-terminal for years. Among other options, it has transparency, GUI color scheme chooser with available preset color palettes including Solarized light and dark, scrollbar on right, left or hidden, hide the menubar, disable window borders, enable toolbar, and (in jessie and above at least), a Quake-style drop-down mode launched with xfce4-terminal --drop-down).

As far as an image-viewer, I looked at Mirage and it's nice. I liked the image preview pane on the left, but I couldn't find a way to loop the slideshow. I'm sticking with gpicview.

tknomanzr · 2015-03-25 03:29:12

mate-terminal seems pretty peppy. It is a fork of gnome-terminal but reminds me quite a bit of sakura. I have noticed while doing live builds that is does a fine job of outputting walls of text.

Here is its list of dependencies:

    dep: libatk1.0-0 (>= 1.12.4)
        ATK accessibility toolkit 

    dep: libc0.1 (>= 2.17-91) [kfreebsd-amd64, kfreebsd-i386]
        GNU C Library: Shared libraries
        also a virtual package provided by libc0.1-udeb 

    dep: libc0.3 (>= 2.12) [hurd-i386]
        GNU C Library: Shared libraries
        also a virtual package provided by libc0.3-udeb 

    dep: libc6 (>= 2.14) [amd64]
        GNU C Library: Shared libraries
        also a virtual package provided by libc6-udeb 

    dep: libc6 (>= 2.16) [x32]

    dep: libc6 (>= 2.17) [arm64, ppc64el]

    dep: libc6 (>= 2.19) [sh4]

    dep: libc6 (>= 2.3.4) [hppa]

    dep: libc6 (>= 2.4) [armel, armhf, i386, m68k, mips, mipsel, powerpc, powerpcspe, ppc64, s390x, sparc64]

    dep: libc6 (>= 2.6) [sparc]

    dep: libc6.1 (>= 2.3.4) [alpha]
        GNU C Library: Shared libraries
        also a virtual package provided by libc6.1-udeb 

    dep: libcairo2 (>= 1.2.4)
        Cairo 2D vector graphics library 

    dep: libdconf1 (>= 0.14.0)
        simple configuration storage system - runtime library 

    dep: libfontconfig1 (>= 2.11)
        generic font configuration library - runtime 

    dep: libfreetype6 (>= 2.2.1)
        FreeType 2 font engine, shared library files 

    dep: libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 (>= 2.22.0)
        GDK Pixbuf library 

    dep: libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.37.3)
        GLib library of C routines 

    dep: libgtk2.0-0 (>= 2.24.0)
        GTK+ graphical user interface library 

    dep: libice6 (>= 1:1.0.0)
        X11 Inter-Client Exchange library 

    dep: libpango-1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0)
        Layout and rendering of internationalized text 

    dep: libpangocairo-1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0)
        Layout and rendering of internationalized text 

    dep: libpangoft2-1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0)
        Layout and rendering of internationalized text 

    dep: libsm6
        X11 Session Management library 

    dep: libvte9 (>= 1:0.28.0)
        Terminal emulator widget for GTK+ 2.0 - runtime files 

    dep: libx11-6
        X11 client-side library 

    dep: libxext6
        X11 miscellaneous extension library 

    dep: mate-desktop-common
        Library with common API for various MATE modules (common files) 

    dep: mate-terminal-common (= 1.8.1+dfsg1-3) [sparc64]
        MATE terminal emulator application (common files) 

    dep: mate-terminal-common (= 1.8.1+dfsg1-4) [not sparc64]

    dep: python
        interactive high-level object-oriented language (default version)

smacz · 2015-03-25 07:07:03

@johnraff

I see that you're installing 'bunsen-lock' without installing 'xscreensaver'. This will outright not function. Obviously there is a different thread to deal with this, but I did want to flag it for follow-up in a couple days once that discussion wraps up.

johnraff wrote:

The down side of that is when an unsuspecting user installs something from a big DE like Gnome or KDE, pulls in some session manager and makes a mess of their simple Openbox desktop.

That is a good point, and I think that may be something to consider adding when re-working the bunsen-welcome script. For absolute noobs, there are many nuggets of refined wisdom (as opposed to raw knowledge) that these forums have gathered over the years that they may benefit from being informed of initially.

+1 for BunsenLabs Hydrogen Lite

cpoakes · 2015-03-25 07:18:28

2¢ Regarding terminal emulators, I have objections to Sakura. Starting with v3.0, there is no menu-option or key-command to launch a new terminal window. This was a design choice by the developer who believes all new tasks should be handled as tabs, not windows. Granted one can use the Meta-T hotkey to launch a second instance, but if every application required a different meta key to launch a new window, the proliferation of special keys would be unwieldy. Second, while it supports tabs, you cannot "tear off" a tab as a new window. Third, as minor distinction, the title bar always includes the brand name "Sakura" like Iceweasel or Chromium, rather than a functional name as featured with Thunar ("File Manager"), FileRoller ("Archive Manager"), and other stock apps.

My preference is Xfce4-terminal or roxterm as both support new windows (Ctrl+Shift+N) and tear off tabs to create new windows. Lxterminal also uses Ctrl+Shift+N for new windows but won't do tear off tabs.

Sakura 2.0 was my x-terminal-emulator replacement for terminator under squeeze. Roxterm has been my replacement in waldorf. Anything but sakura please. FYI, the roxterm GTK2 version is lighter than the GTK3 version and both are standard Debian.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-03-25 07:24:29

ROXterm is nice.
http://roxterm.sourceforge.net/

And for the love of $DEITY please don't use Dillo...

johnraff · 2015-03-25 08:00:00

roxterm wrote:

Unable to find a text editor. Please install gedit, gvim, kate or emacs.

Right now, leaning towards xfce4-terminal as a sort of vanilla middle-of-the-road choice. After all, with x-terminal-emulator it's easy enough to switch. Does anyone here hate xfce4-terminal?

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

And for the love of $DEITY please don't use Dillo...

Dillo is great! But not to get into another War or anything, major browsers tend to be major installs... I was thinking of dillo as a placeholder, just to get urgent jobs done quickly (and it is very quick) before the user installed their own choice of x-www-browser.

johnraff · 2015-03-25 08:06:23

smacz wrote:

@johnraff
I see that you're installing 'bunsen-lock' without installing 'xscreensaver'. This will outright not function.

No. It's a script aound xscreensaver. Once the new screenlock application is chosen, then the current script will be rewritten. The package name "bunsen-lock" will stay the same, only the contents will change.

smacz · 2015-03-31 07:25:14

I did a diff of the packages installed in wally and the ones installed on your bunsen-base post here. I omitted the ones that are under debate atm (such as ther terminal, browser, etc.) Here are the ones that are in wally (excluding whatever was brought in by the `cb.deb` files) but not in bunsen-base:

alsa-base
alsa-utils
anacron
apt-xapian-index
arj
avahi-daemon
avahi-utils
bash-completion
bc
build-essential
bzip2
catfish
compton
cpufrequtils
debconf-utils
evince
fbxkb
figlet
file-roller
flashplugin-nonfree
ftp
galculator
gdebi
ghostscript
gigolo
gnome-keyring
gnumeric
gparted
gsimplecal
gtrayicon
gvfs-backends
gvfs-bin
htop
lame
libnss-mdns
libpam-gnome-keyring
lintian
lzop
network-manager-{gnome,openvpn-gnome,pptp-gnome,vpnc-gnome}
openssh-client
pavucontrol
pulseaudio
pulseaudio-module-x11
python-keybinder
rpl
rsync
rzip
screen
scrot
sshfs
sudo
thunar-archive-plugin
thunar-media-tags-plugin
transmission-gtk
ttf-mscorefonts-installer
unace
unalz
unrar
unzip
usbutils
user-setup
volumeicon-alsa
whois
wmctrl
xchat
xdg-utils
xfburn
xfce4-mixer
xfce4-power-manager
xfce4-power-manager-plugins
xfce4-screenshooter
xfce4-volumed
xz-utils
zip

A couple notes that I jotted down while reviewing it:

thunar-archive-plugin? it makes life soooo much easier (even though it makes me lazy)
file-roller (or arj)? I mean, `tar` works fine for *me*, but n00bz...
ftp? Is that really not built into debian already?
htop? :.(
Now if gnome-keyring isn't installed in the 'base', can we store ssh keys, etc?
network manager? i guess ifup and ifdown it is then...
I remember that I needed build-essential for something. It certainly sounds important
sudo? Let's all run as root! `#>` FTW!!!
Doesn't xdg get referenced in the pipemenus? And can it function without xdg-utils?
EDIT: I will sorely miss bash-completion if it is omitted

Possibly in dispute (or have yet to be discussed):

Alsa and Pulse. What is the audio controlled by? or is that not base?
Evince pdf viewer?
Transmission? I always torrent the .iso's for an install if I'm in a live environment.
(He)Xchat? IRC is slightly archaic, but it does serve a valuable purpose.
Xfburn? That seems manditory(ish)
Power-manager (not even mate?)

And reviewing the bunsen-base list for cruft:

Wasn't reiserfs labled as useless by pvsage? (I could be mistaken)
Should synaptic be in base? anythings just an apt-get away...
xorg? isn't that superfluous? {/s}, thanks johnraff for putting this together. I'm only nitpicking per usual

Last edited by smacz (2015-03-31 07:59:29)

smacz · 2015-03-31 07:30:42

Separate post for separate subject matter.

+1 for xfce4-terminal

Pretty please can we have `vim` installed by default instead of only having vi? @HoaS knows what I'm talking about IIRC. I know it's just an apt-get away, but I'm lazy (#firstworldproblems)

Last edited by smacz (2015-03-31 07:31:36)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-03-31 07:31:10

smacz wrote:

Pretty please can we have `vim` installed by default instead of only having vi? @HoaS knows what I'm talking about. I know it's just an apt-get away, but I'm lazy (#firstworldproblems)

+1

hhh · 2015-03-31 07:42:45

johnraff posted in another thread that he loathes vim, and I agree with him as nano is much saner for most people. vim-tiny is included in a net-install, I assume BL would include that.

smacz · 2015-03-31 07:52:09

That's why I said pretty please

There are many more things that are more important though. I'll have to check out the functionality of vim-tiny.

Last edited by smacz (2015-03-31 07:53:07)

tknomanzr · 2015-03-31 13:44:57

user-setup will be required for a live build, along with some other live-build stuff. build-essential is required if you intend to compile from source, or possibly to install proprietary video drivers, as the ATI ones, at least use dkms to configure.

Sector11 · 2015-03-31 15:34:26

Interesting - I use nano. sudo visudo got me into that.

BUT!
1. I'm not a programmer, don't need the power of vi, vim. vim-tiny or emacs
2. I have no problems having them in the default list for people that do like/need/use them.

Somehow I doubt nano, vim, vim-tiny and emacs would take up the same HDD space as geany and that's not counting the geany-plugins

However - saying that, what Debian8 comes with as a default is good and the rest: just a get away.

For NewWorldLazy - or typing correctly challenged people (me):

alias get='echo "sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends" ; sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends'
alias sget='echo "alias sget = sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends --simulate" ; sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends --simulate'

smacz · 2015-04-01 07:08:31

Ok ok...just thought I'd ask

@johnraff I don't understand purpose in making Bunsen-Core. Are you grouping these programs in the Bunsen-Core metapackage because you want to have them all be installed with `--no-install-recommends` and be unremovable (or risk breaking the metapackage)? Or are you cherry-picking the programs to have a bare-bones-bunsen CD-sized .iso (which may just be a side-effect but not the actual goal here)?

Either way I'm setting up a VM netinstall to see how those work vanilla. (I'll also be installing git to clone the repos though)

johnraff · 2015-04-02 04:44:20

@smacz some of the "missing" packages will have already been installed by the debian netinstall, as long as you remember to include "basic system utilities". 'sudo' will certainly be there.

As to the reason to have such a bunsen-base metapackage at all...
I'm beginning to wonder to be honest.

The idea, as suggested here, was to have --no-install-recommends as system default and break up the bunsen packages into a number of small metapackages each with hard dependencies, so that if a user removed something in bunsen-audio (for example) they could keep the absolutely necessary stuff in bunsen-base. So bunsen-base isn't intended to be a system in itself but a way to protect the user from removing vital parts of their desktop setup because they changed their media player.

However, I'm beginning to wonder if we shouldn't stay with the Debian default of installing recommends after all. There are some packages in the standard list that would bring in a lot of unwanted stuff (in particular file-roller, because it's in the Gnome family) so some way of dealing with them will be needed, but with disk space in good supply these days the average user might be better off installing recommends and avoiding missing some important library.

Also, importantly, metapackages that pull in recommends instead of hard dependencies will not be uninstalled if one of the recommended packages is removed. I'm presuming that's why corenominal chose that path for CrunchBang, and why we should maybe follow suit...

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-04-02 06:49:28

johnraff wrote:

I'm beginning to wonder if we shouldn't stay with the Debian default of installing recommends

+1

I always find installing Debian systems from scratch a lot less hassle than installing Arch systems 'cos in Arch I have to watch the `pacman` output & manually install all the recommended packages afterwards...

It's only a matter of a few (hundred) MiB either way and most users have many GiB of storage.

I know a lot of users talk about "bloat" (me included) but it's not like a few hundred MiB of extra libraries & unused programs are going to slow a system down in any way at all.

Sector11 · 2015-04-02 12:49:21

I'm not I wasn't 100% certain what metapackages were .. so I went looking and found this blog: A quick guide to debian metapackages. That put things in simple terms I can wrap my head around.

TL;DR - metapackage = dogs | recommends = cats = different beasts - I thought they were "directly related"

Once the system is up and running using the added --no-install-recommends with apt-get for personal package choices is just that - a personal choice and doesn't interfere with the "metapackage" since it is possible to delete unwanted packages listed in the cb-metapackage.

Now if that's true I'd say follow what Debian does and what corenominal did with CrunchBang to get BunsenLabs as it's meant to be.

So: +1 to HoaS's +1

Personal "tweaking" to follow.

=== The TL;DR Part ===

I remember wanting to remove something from #! and more often than not I do a simulate first

alias sremv = sudo apt-get remove --purge --simulate
alias remv = sudo apt-get remove --purge

since it's only an "s" away from what I really want to do and I see, on occasion, it will remove some package I don't want removed, ie: cb-filename.

Today it yelled: BINGO! metapackage. - more time at StartPage - WRONG!

Because when I look at cb-metapackage - I see apps I have removed among which are: abiword, gnumeric, network-manager, pulseaudio, synaptic, tint2conf and more.

Back to confused. This talks about "recommends" differences between Etch and Lenny with regard to default settings for apt.

So I did a test to see:

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends --simulate xfce4-utils

The following NEW packages will be installed:
  xfce4-utils

and

sudo apt-get install --simulate xfce4-utils

The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libgarcon-1-0 libgarcon-common libwnck-common libwnck22 libxres1 xfce4-panel xfce4-utils xfwm4 xfwm4-themes
  xscreensaver xscreensaver-data

and what a difference - and that's just one app!

OK, so "apt-get" in Waldorf is set to get recommends and the cb-metapackage will do just that that with the files that make CrunchBang what it is.

Sector11 · 2015-04-02 12:55:05

Also found this in my travels today that might be interesting to some others that were/are confused regarding package "dependencies".

metapackges = recommends = NOT!

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-04-02 13:20:50

Excellent general guide to metapackages in Debian here:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=104157

Now that I've used Slackware for a bit I must say I really don't like metapackages at all but that's a whole other discussion...

hhh · 2015-04-02 16:45:29

@johnraff, I guess it was in another thread that I said it's easier to remove packages than to go hunting for some missing library, and libraries are small re: disk space.

That said, file-roller is problematic because of it's stupid Yelp recommends, which then pulls in gnome-user-guide, which is pretty useless for Openbox users. May I suggest having file-roller --no-install-recommends be part of bl-welcome? If an archiver must be included, use xarchiver and have the welcome script offer to switch them (apt-get install file-roller --no-install-recommends && apt-get purge xarchiver && apt-get --purge autoremove).

Sector11 · 2015-04-02 17:35:13

^ as a matter of fact I have ditched file-roller for xarchiver a long time ago. Thunar works with it just fine.

What are you suggesting purging xarchiver??

tknomanzr · 2015-04-02 18:39:53

I prefer xarchiver. File-roller is just an eye-sore with all those Gnome 3 CSD's in it. xarchiver has done a fine job so far, plus I like it's integration in pcmanfm.

hhh · 2015-04-02 18:45:28

Sector11 wrote:

^ as a matter of fact I have ditched file-roller for xarchiver a long time ago. Thunar works with it just fine.
What are you suggesting purging xarchiver??

I've always done the opposite using Xfce, ditched xarchiver and installed file-roller --no-install-recommends. Inevitably I've run into an archive that will not extract with xarchiver but opens right up with file-roller (sorry, I can't remember which archive type it glitches on). file-roller works great with thunar as long as thunar-archive-plugin is installed (I think that's the right package).

johnraff · 2015-04-03 03:18:47

I also remember there were cases when file-roller worked better than xarchiver, though details escape me now. Also a time when file-roller was much faster to open an archive. Of course, xarchiver might have improved since, but as long as you install without recommends file-roller seems pretty good.

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#26 2015-03-25 03:15:39

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#27 2015-03-25 03:29:12

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#28 2015-03-25 07:07:03

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#29 2015-03-25 07:18:28

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#30 2015-03-25 07:24:29

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#31 2015-03-25 08:00:00

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#32 2015-03-25 08:06:23

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#33 2015-03-31 07:25:14

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#34 2015-03-31 07:30:42

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#35 2015-03-31 07:31:10

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#36 2015-03-31 07:42:45

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#37 2015-03-31 07:52:09

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#38 2015-03-31 13:44:57

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#39 2015-03-31 15:34:26

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#40 2015-04-01 07:08:31

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#41 2015-04-02 04:44:20

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#42 2015-04-02 06:49:28

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#43 2015-04-02 12:49:21

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#44 2015-04-02 12:55:05

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#45 2015-04-02 13:20:50

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#46 2015-04-02 16:45:29

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#47 2015-04-02 17:35:13

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#48 2015-04-02 18:39:53

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#49 2015-04-02 18:45:28

Re: Metapackages and recommends

#50 2015-04-03 03:18:47

Re: Metapackages and recommends

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