dCore --no-recommends

[nitram]

In Debian,  apt-get install PKG --no-recommends  is useful for keeping installs smaller, downside may lose some features. This would be complex and i haven't read anything like this with dCore, is it possible?

[Jason W]

It is actually already done.  Recommends: is a field in the DEBINX file in which is removed on our server before it is downloaded by debGetEnv.  The same with Suggests:. 

[nitram]

Mystery of the debinx, google returns TC forum. What does debinx stand for, 'debian installation ?'.

Took a look at thunar in /debinx/debian_jessie_main_i386_Packages and compared it to Debian's site. See what you mean, just the basic dependencies. So what's if user wants to install all recommended or suggested dependencies? Possible or does it break something in dCore? For example dbus, gvfs, thunar-volman. If Thunar bad example, same basic question for other extensions.

Never noticed before, debinx/ contains jessie_main and jessie_security but also two smaller files (6mb vs 10mb) named rcksum-PAsfNF and rcksum-kwBBPN. They appear to contain similar data. Are these corrupt temp files due to recent update problems or related to debian non-free or something? Delete? Thanks again.

[Jason W]

Debian Index.

So what if the user wants Build-Depends:?   Build-Depends-Indep:?   I get what you are saying, but that does place a large coding re-arrangement on me. 

I will not don't mind excluding any option, but the rest should be left to the user.  And to re-include it, is of no small code change.

[Jason W]

Your observations are noted.  And in the future we may consider options like a "-build-depends" option and such as those fields exist in addition to recommends and suggested and can be useful. 

[nitram]

Debian Index - duh - thanks.

Sorry if misunderstood, did not want to increase your workload, just wondering if presently available. Personal preference usually --no-recommends, rare occasion the software isn't as useful, though mostly fluff. No biggie, thanks for clarifying.

Regarding /debinx/rcksum-PAsfNF and rcksum-kwBBPN, normal, required, update problem leftovers?

[Jason W]

The files like rcksum-PAsfNF you mention are either partial rsyncs or whatever, not useful to the system. I will think about adding recommends or build-deps options.  Will surely happen at some point in the future.  Thanks.

[Jason W]

I have a concept that can use --recommends and --suggests flags to sce-import.  We are running out of meaningful one letter arguments as -r and -s are already taken, so may have to move to full words.  RECOMMENDS=TRUE and SUGGESTS=TRUE would be the sceconfig entries. 

This works with the same mechanism as fetching dependencies, and does not require changing sce-import but for a few lines to test for the existence of the arguments as the routine is external to sce-import.

Will aim to put up a prototype in the coming days.  This should help make for a smoother experience for those desiring full functionality of packages at the expense of SCE size.

[nitram]

As mentioned, not a big deal, don't spend any effort. Okay - go ahead

Will gladly test prototype when ready.

As -r and -s taken, maybe something easy to remember:

sce-import -f       full, also include recommended dependencies

sce-import -F      full fat, also include recommended and suggested dependencies

[sm8ps]

Liking the "full fat" option after year-end celebrations. However, I see it clearly as a nice to have. After all, the desired behavior can be realized by creating a suitable extension list.
Happy new year to everybody!
sm

[Jason W]

I forgot we have upper case, maybe -R for recommended and -S for suggested, easy to remember per the letters.  Which matching letters for function is nice when possible.   -RS or -SR of course for both combined.

[Jason W]

All is in place and working here, had to incorporate into the update routine and perhaps uncovered a bug or just fixed things that was introduced by this.  Plan to upload tomorrow after some more testing.

[nitram]

Only had time for preliminary test using XFE file manager:
sce-import xfe = 19.5mb extension that worked well
sce-import -R xfe = 143mb exension that included audacious and xarchiver (correct), worked well
sce-import -RS xfe = failed as i ran out of disk space

Will try to find smaller extension for testing. Also never tried option combos, like -zorR or whatever.

dCore offers more extension flexibility than first thought: basic extensions, recommended and suggested dependencies, custom list files. Nice to have the option to install slim or fat version - thanks Jason.

[Jason W]

I also noticed the complete bloat of both -R and -S after re-importing my stuff with those options enabled.  What I did was have all the dependencies be resolved during sce-import as if you don't have all the deps also with -R and/ or -S then the top level app may or may not get it's full featuredness since the deps wouldn't have theirs.   Definitely not the options I will use everyday, but good to have for folks that don't want to spend time seeing why things don't work just to find out that package dep XYZ was optional because it was not a library dependency.

I also fixed a bug in debGetDeps that would also likely make SCEs bigger as "return" instead of "continue" was used in a loop.  So deps could have been being missed, maybe less of the PKGADDEP use is needed to make things work even in standard mode.

[Jason W]

Here is my thoughts given the huge bloat of including every recommends or suggests along the dependency chain.  I think the recommended and suggested in Debian applies to a package, and not every package along it's dep tree.  Perhaps we should just have the -R or -S option fetch the recommends or suggests for just that package sharing the SCE name.  If using a list file, then we are assuming expert mode in a sense as the SCE name may not match any package.

I can see if packages nearly doubled in size from these options, but being 7 times as big with just -R is a stretch.

xfe via sce-import -RS is 288MB. 

EDIT:  Reading an askubuntu thread where a 6MB apt-get install session grew to over 1GB with --install-suggests option.  So yeah, we are just seeing Debian/Ubuntu dep logic with these two options.