[Pkg-xfce-devel] Bug#667703: [task-desktop] Please install Synaptic Package Manager

Sat Apr 7 19:04:06 UTC 2012

Hi Christian,

On 2012-04-06 01:15, Christian PERRIER wrote:
> Quoting Filipus Klutiero (chealer at gmail.com):
>
>> The idea of having each desktop provide its package manager was
>> good, but kpackage was very far from matching Synaptic. It was even
>> removed from KDE later, with the result that installing
>> task-kde-desktop no longer causes the installation of a graphical
>> package manager, as reported in
>> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=586982
>> There is still nothing that matches Synaptic today.
>>
>> Furthermore, we now have LXDE and Xfce, which are also not
>> preinstalling any graphical package manager. So I think Synaptic
>> should be preinstalled on all DE-s... except that in Squeeze, GNOME
>> itself does not preinstall Synaptic. Instead, it preinstalls GNOME
>> PackageKit.
>
> I agree with the idea of graphical environments to need a graphical
> package manager (though, for LXDE and Xfce, one might argue that users
> of these environments are probably looking for a "not-too-bloated"
> environment and therefore could maybe deal with a text-based package
> manager).

Hum, good point. I admit I don't remember it even crossed my mind that 
LXDE and Xfce would be intentionally leaving a package manager out.

I'm testing from a more or less minimal KDE environment (1489 packages 
installed). I usually install synaptic with --no-install-recommends, and 
then it's quite lightweight. synaptic itself is 6.5 MB.
>
> Before adding this, I'd like to get comments from other tasksel
> maintainers (that would be Otavio and/or Joey).
>
> The concern might be dependencies being pulled in by synaptic. I'm
> not in position to test that but wouldn't it pull "half of GNOME" into
> other graphical environments? :-). At least probably some GTK
> libraries that wouldn't be pulled otherwise?

Indeed. Synaptic is more GTK+ than GNOME, although it does
> Recommends: gksu | kdebase-bin | policykit-1

and gksu recommends gnome-keyring. Otherwise, it depends on GTK+ 2, but 
all tasks already installs that (for one thing, via Iceweasel).
On my system, the only real new dependency is libvte9, just 2.5 MB. Most 
of the additional weight comes from recommendations:

> Recommends: gksu | kdebase-bin | policykit-1, libgtk2-perl (>= 
> 1:1.130), rarian-compat, software-properties-gtk

kde-standard depends on polkit-kde-1, which depends on policykit-1, so 
the first *should* not be a problem for KDE. It might be for LXDE and 
Xfce, however.

libgtk2-perl and its additional dependencies amount to an extra 5.5 MB. 
This is considerable, but I think worth it for new users. The 
alternative of prompting in CLI is not great and exposes 
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=339556

rarian-compat only brings 0.7 MB here. I don't see much what Rarian 
does, and I have no idea what it's adding to Synaptic.

Finally, the most problematic is software-properties-gtk, which replaces 
the native dialog Synaptic offers to configure source (Settings -> 
Repositories). This is rarely used, but is probably quite nice when you 
need it (I don't know it much). That one brings in a large 8 MB, 
primarily due to its dependency on python-aptdaemon.gtk3widget. That 
causes the installation of another, GTK 3, libvte. This may be a bit 
less problematic if Synaptic transitions to GTK+ 3 and that newer libvte.

In total, installing synaptic with its recommends adds an extra 23 MB here.

Trying to install task-xfce-desktop and task-lxde-desktop, I see that 
these apparently already bring in gksu and libvte9. So adding synaptic 
to task-desktop should cause task-desktop to install about 20 MB more 
for LXDE and Xfce. task-xfce-desktop installs an extra 235 MB here. 
task-lxde-desktop, 198 MB. These numbers should give a rough picture, 
but are not very representative. I wish it was a little less, but I 
would say that 20 MB versus about 200 MB is reasonable, considering the 
alternative, providing only CLI package managers.

For reference:

> # LANG=C apt-get install synaptic
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information... Done
> The following extra packages will be installed:
>   aptdaemon aptdaemon-data gir1.2-atk-1.0 gir1.2-freedesktop 
> gir1.2-gdkpixbuf-2.0 gir1.2-gtk-3.0 gir1.2-pango-1.0 gir1.2-vte-2.90 
> libcairo-perl libglib-perl libgtk2-perl libpango-perl librarian0 
> libvte-2.90-9 libvte-2.90-common libvte-common libvte9 python-aptdaemon
>   python-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets python-defer python-gnupginterface 
> python-software-properties rarian-compat software-properties-common 
> software-properties-gtk unattended-upgrades
> Suggested packages:
>   libfont-freetype-perl libgtk2-perl-doc dwww deborphan 
> apt-xapian-index bsd-mailx
> The following NEW packages will be installed:
>   aptdaemon aptdaemon-data gir1.2-atk-1.0 gir1.2-freedesktop 
> gir1.2-gdkpixbuf-2.0 gir1.2-gtk-3.0 gir1.2-pango-1.0 gir1.2-vte-2.90 
> libcairo-perl libglib-perl libgtk2-perl libpango-perl librarian0 
> libvte-2.90-9 libvte-2.90-common libvte-common libvte9 python-aptdaemon
>   python-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets python-defer python-gnupginterface 
> python-software-properties rarian-compat software-properties-common 
> software-properties-gtk synaptic unattended-upgrades
> 0 upgraded, 27 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
> Need to get 4823 kB/8447 kB of archives.
> After this operation, 22.9 MB of additional disk space will be used.
> Do you want to continue [Y/n]? n
> Abort.
> root at vinci:/etc/php5# LANG=C apt-get install software-properties-gtk
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information... Done
> The following extra packages will be installed:
>   aptdaemon aptdaemon-data gir1.2-atk-1.0 gir1.2-freedesktop 
> gir1.2-gdkpixbuf-2.0 gir1.2-gtk-3.0 gir1.2-pango-1.0 gir1.2-vte-2.90 
> libvte-2.90-9 libvte-2.90-common python-aptdaemon 
> python-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets python-defer python-gnupginterface
>   python-software-properties software-properties-common 
> unattended-upgrades
> Suggested packages:
>   bsd-mailx
> The following NEW packages will be installed:
>   aptdaemon aptdaemon-data gir1.2-atk-1.0 gir1.2-freedesktop 
> gir1.2-gdkpixbuf-2.0 gir1.2-gtk-3.0 gir1.2-pango-1.0 gir1.2-vte-2.90 
> libvte-2.90-9 libvte-2.90-common python-aptdaemon 
> python-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets python-defer python-gnupginterface
>   python-software-properties software-properties-common 
> software-properties-gtk unattended-upgrades
> 0 upgraded, 18 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
> Need to get 2844 kB/2903 kB of archives.
> After this operation, 7818 kB of additional disk space will be used.
> Do you want to continue [Y/n]? n
> Abort.
> root at vinci:/etc/php5# LANG=C apt-get install rarian-compat
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information... Done
> The following extra packages will be installed:
>   librarian0
> The following NEW packages will be installed:
>   librarian0 rarian-compat
> 0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
> Need to get 196 kB of archives.
> After this operation, 659 kB of additional disk space will be used.
> Do you want to continue [Y/n]? n
> Abort.
> root at vinci:/etc/php5# LANG=C apt-get install libgtk2-perl
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information... Done
> The following extra packages will be installed:
>   libcairo-perl libglib-perl libpango-perl
> Suggested packages:
>   libfont-freetype-perl libgtk2-perl-doc
> The following NEW packages will be installed:
>   libcairo-perl libglib-perl libgtk2-perl libpango-perl
> 0 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
> Need to get 1783 kB of archives.
> After this operation, 5404 kB of additional disk space will be used.
> Do you want to continue [Y/n]? n
> Abort.
> root at vinci:/etc/php5# LANG=C apt-get install libvte9
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information... Done
> The following extra packages will be installed:
>   libvte-common
> The following NEW packages will be installed:
>   libvte-common libvte9
> 0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
> Need to get 0 B/1160 kB of archives.
> After this operation, 2410 kB of additional disk space will be used.
> Do you want to continue [Y/n]? n
> Abort.
> root at vinci:/etc/php5# LANG=C apt-get --no-install-recommends install 
> synaptic
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information... Done
> The following extra packages will be installed:
>   libvte-common libvte9
> Suggested packages:
>   dwww deborphan apt-xapian-index
> Recommended packages:
>   libgtk2-perl rarian-compat software-properties-gtk
> The following NEW packages will be installed:
>   libvte-common libvte9 synaptic
> 0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
> Need to get 0 B/3565 kB of archives.
> After this operation, 8980 kB of additional disk space will be used.