> On Tue September 20 2011, David Hare <David Hare > <davidahare@...>> wrote: >> On 20/09/11 18:36, Greg Madden wrote: >> > I am a Squeeze-KDE trinity user. >> > >> > KDE-trinity does seem to have more depends than I would like to >> > see, but as long as they are recommends or suggestions I have >> > control of what gets installed. Afaik 'apt.conf' file will set >> > up a global recommends/suggestion install policy for your >> > system. Some package managers are better than others in showing >> > what is a recommend or suggestion, i personally like 'dselect' >> > >> > A DE will function fine without recommends& suggestions. >> > Increased functionality is a personal thing, if you want it you >> > will know it and can install as needed. >> > >> > As far as a bug I would say not necessarily, it is a decision >> > someone made, minds can change, suggest a different possibility. >> >> I use apt-get, which by default installs "recommends". I know how >> to use apt.conf >> >> My point is that sudo, if wanted on a Debian system, is normally >> configured by deliberate user action only and has no apparent >> reason to be a "recommends" of a multimedia application. >> >> Also what has kpackage got to do with multimedia? > > This is REALLY a stretch, but perhaps someone thought that installing > a multimedia package would lead to wanting to fiddle with the audio > and video drivers on the machine, and that was a good reason to > recommend KDE-specific tools for that?? Actually, that's it exactly. Typical hack-arounds for inaccessible devices usually include running the offending application as root to make sure that permissions are not part of the problem. Not that I encourage this behaviour, but you have to remember that I inherited the original packaging control files from Ubuntu, and apparently someone there thought this was a good idea... Why don't you create a bug report listing the various packages that incorrectly recommend sudo, and I'll do a batch commit removing the offending recommends from Debian. Tim