FS#55635 - [glibc] Add optional dependencies for helper commands like locale-gen
Attached to Project:
Arch Linux
Opened by Tinu Weber (ayekat) - Thursday, 14 September 2017, 12:31 GMT
Last edited by Eli Schwartz (eschwartz) - Thursday, 14 September 2017, 18:54 GMT
Opened by Tinu Weber (ayekat) - Thursday, 14 September 2017, 12:31 GMT
Last edited by Eli Schwartz (eschwartz) - Thursday, 14 September 2017, 18:54 GMT
|
Details
glibc provides (among other things) the `locale-gen`
command, which appears to depend on at least sed. This is
not indicated anywhere, and thus the following bug reports
were opened (and closed again), suggesting to add
dependencies to glibc:
* https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/7184 * https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/25178 * https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/41294 The problem is that (A) a hard dependency would create circular dependencies and (B) glibc is perfectly capable of providing its core functionality (i.e. being a standard C library) without these packages. However, its "helper" commands may still fail, so sed (and gzip?) should be added as *optional* dependencies (e.g. with "for locale-gen", the same way as it proposes gd with "for memusagestat"). (Also, before this gets closed as well with: "All packages in the 'base' group are supposed to be installed": The selection of packages in that group has repeatedly been questioned (the latest discussion being [1] and follow-up), and 'base' is by no means a "basic installation", but rather an "example basic setup, containg most of what you will likely need" - it's handy for newcomers, but not necessarily for users who would just like to pick the packages they really need) Additional info: * Package version: glibc-2.26-4 Steps to reproduce: 1. Install glibc as part of the installation procedure with `pacstrap`, without sed. 2. Run `locale-gen`. [1]: https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-dev-public/2017-September/028965.html |
This task depends upon
Closed by Eli Schwartz (eschwartz)
Thursday, 14 September 2017, 18:54 GMT
Reason for closing: Duplicate
Additional comments about closing: FS#7184
FS#25178
FS#41294
Thursday, 14 September 2017, 18:54 GMT
Reason for closing: Duplicate
Additional comments about closing:
This assumes we don't end up making a base-system group which enforces an absolute policy of not depending on a minimal subset of packages.
For now it makes little sense to track one bug here and one bug there, when some packagers try to add all such dependencies and some packagers try to remove all such dependencies.
You know this perfectly well, as you explicitly referenced the current debate, and still opened a bug for something that is not currently a policy. Not only that, but the very first of those bugs *you* referenced, discussed and rejected the possibility of adding those as optdepends.
Please don't do this.