Bug 30667

Summary:	rpmdrake: provide no-recommends + more information
Product:	Mageia	Reporter:	aguador <waterbearer54>
Component:	RPM Packages	Assignee:	Mageia tools maintainers <mageiatools>
Status:	NEW ---	QA Contact:
Severity:	enhancement
Priority:	Normal
Version:	Cauldron
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Source RPM:	rpmdrake-6.32-2.mga9.src.rpm	CVE:
Status comment:

Description aguador 2022-07-25 10:32:21 CEST

When installing new packages via rpmdrake (drakrpm) recommends are automatically selected. As currently designed the tool lacks two features:

o  Immediate differentiation between recommends and hard dependencies
o  Option to exclude recommends (--no-recommends)

First, when the dependencies popup appears it designates all ancillary packages as "dependencies", and it is not until one clicks on "More information" that one can see which packages are recommends. At a minimum the initial popup should differentiate between hard dependencies and recommends.

Example, in https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30666, attempting to install lxappearance on my system generated several "dependencies" that, when the more information button was clicked, were shown to be recommends.

Second, when recommends are identified, rpmdrake provides no simply way to exclude the installation of "recommends". Obviously, one can use urpmi with --no-recommends, but that has two drawbacks: a) if one started with the GUI, one must exit and open a terminal and b) some users will be "command-line shy".

Comment 1 aguador 2022-07-25 10:51:20 CEST

While differentiating between recommends and dependencies should not be difficult, I realize that implementing --no-recommends in rpmdrake more difficult and can be done in different ways:

o Blanket --no-recommends
o After the fact exclusion of individual/all recommends

The first option could be simply to exclude recommends from installs. This could be a "persistant" option that is remembered once set, or one that can be set for a particular session, perhaps after seeing the list of recommends for a package to be installed.

The second seems more difficult and would be to allow the user to choose to include the recommends in the installation or not, either individually or all.

I have no strong preferences, but do believe that some way of excluding recommends is needed for the graphical tool.

Comment 2 Lewis Smith 2022-07-26 09:55:43 CEST

Thank you for the suggestion, which I am forwarding directly to the 'mageiatools' people.
This suggestion emerged from bug 30666, a specifically erroneous case. Let us bear in mind that users are by and large content with the current behaviour, if unaware of 'recommended' additions.

I would rule out both a session or system-wide/persistant 'recommends' choice.

This gets convoluted if you choose to install >1 package at a time, and your recommends preference differs for each one: you want the 'recommends' for some, but not others.

Assignee: bugsquad => mageiatools