On 1/6/22 4:48 PM, Antony Stone wrote:
> On Thursday 06 January 2022 at 22:30:58, Ken Dibble wrote:
>
>> Why is xdg-desktop-portal in a fresh install of Chimaera?
> I have a Chimaera machine here, freshly installed, without any graphical
> desktop environment - just a command-line network server - and xdg-desktop-
> portal is not installed.
>
>> It can be safely uninstalled, as it no devuan packages in the base
>> install require it,
> They may not REQUIRE it, but I wonder whether you are allowing packages to
> install RECOMMENDS as well?
>
> Try "aptitude why xdg-desktop-portal" and see whether something you do want to
> have on your machine has simply Recommended xdg-desktop-portal, and you ended
> up with it because you haven't told apt or aptitude not to do that sort of
> thing without your permission.
>
> I always put two files into /etc/apt/apt.conf.d before allowing much software
> to be installed:
>
> /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/norecommendationsplease
> APT::Install-Recommends "false";
> APT::Get::Install-Recommends "false";
>
> /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/nosuggestionsplease
> APT::Install-Suggests "false";
> APT::Get::Install-Suggests "false";
>
> That way nothing gets installed unless I explicitly ask for it, or it's
> essential for something I asked for.
>
>
> Antony.
>
Thank you.  The machine in question had a gui and it probably got pulled
in with

a suggestion.


I was not aware of the apt configurability, so I got to learn something
for free (except for your time).


Thanks again.

Ken