[Debian-olpc-devel] Dependancies.... seem to be awful lot.

[simon at mungewell.org]

Hello Jonas,

>
> There is 2 things here:
>
>
> 1) You are right, sugar does not _need_ CUPS. Sugar either needs or
> recommends other stuff (like dbus and abiword) which then recommends a
> slew of GNOME packages and CUPS.

It seems the main culprit is python-gnome2-desktop which pulls in a whole
load of gnome dependencies, only some of which I presume are needed.

>
> 2) The package "sugar" does not represent the whole sugar environment,
> but only the specific software package called "sugar".

True, but an install of 'sugar' will give you a sugar system to which you
can bring activities packages (either with apt-get, download or via USB
key).

>
> If you use "aptitude --without-recommends" then you'll see what is
> strictly _needed_ by the sugar package, wihtout pulling in stuff that
> is only recommended.

OK that gets some stuff out, but there is still a fair amount of cruft
(libcdparanoia surely isn't required for example).

I found the application apt-rdepends quite informative.

>
> There is currently no package representing "the sugar environment". When
> all needed parts are packaged officially for Debian, I intend to provide
> a metapackage "fructose" that will depend on all packages needed (and
> possibly recommend other packages, that you may avoid installing using
> above mentioned aptitude option).
>

I appreciate that it is hard to slim down completely (and also the work
that you have put into the project). I'm not meaning to be critical, I was
just rather suprised just how much was going to be added to a 130MByte
base install/live-CD.

I look forward to the new packages,
Mungewell.