Arch Linux

In the module packaging guidelines (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Kernel_Module_Package_Guidelines) one is required to make a module package depend on its associated utilities.

In most cases this will be eminently reasonable. However there are cases (for example aufs) where the utilities are optional extras and these utilities themselves have further dependencies which might be quite extensive and in certain circumstances undesirable (for example because of size).

I admit this case might well be rare. Nevertheless this same requirement doesn't exist for modules included in the kernel (it would be a pain if it did!), thus the kernel doesn't depend on, for example, unionfs-utils or squashfs-tools.

My suggestion, which I believe would be painless to implement (no existing packages would _need_ to be changed) and in line with general Arch policy (not to have unnecessary dependencies), would be to change the line:

"... make sure nvidia depends on nvidia-utils ..."

to:

"... if nvidia-utils is required for the use of nvidia, make sure nvidia depends on nvidia-utils ..."

Thus cases where the utilities are optional would be left to the discretion of the package maintainer.