Felix Miata said the following on 05/08/2011 01:28 AM:
On 2011/05/07 18:35 (GMT-1000) kanenas@hawaii.rr.com composed:
a long time ago users had to have the knowledge and abilty to define what they wanted in a new install. Now we get about 3 gigabytes of shtuff with even the simplest install with a functioning x engine and too much nonsense slips in hidden from our eyes. perhaps there is a need for a more detailed install menu?
It's detailed enough I have no problem finding strigi, apparmor, splashy, kdepim4, gtk2-immodule*, bluez, ktorrent, and other nuisances and bloatware and setting taboo on them before proceeding to the main installation step. It would be nice to have a minimal KDE install that leaves out anything not strictly necessary to reach a KDE desktop with working app launcher, minimalist panel, YaST2, KControl, Konsole and nothing else. The way it is now it seems for every other needed app selected 3-6 recommends get yanked in with it.
I-would-if-I-could-but-I-can't I don't use KDE's PIM. I use T'bird for mail addresses and Firefox for bookmarks. Piles of other "Personal Information" stuff I don't need to "manage". So: # rpm -e kdepim4-runtime-4.4.11.1-3.4.i586 error: Failed dependencies: kdepim4-runtime is needed by (installed) koffice2-2.3.1-83.4.i586 kdepim4-runtime is needed by (installed) plasma-addons-4.6.3-5.1.i586 kdepim4-runtime is needed by (installed) kgpg-4.6.3-4.3.i586 Well, I could do without koffice at a pinch, but there are some .ppt files that OOo/LOo upchucks on... but Kgpg is a necessity. When I look though my installation I find I have a LOT of cruft. Yes, a desktop workstation has plenty of disk, memory and CPU, but what if I want to run KDE on my netbook? Al this is pretty heavy stuff! And it gets worse! I've got Postfix. Its a lovely applciation .... to run on your mail server. Not on your workstation! Modern Mail User Agents can be pointed at a mail server for IMAP and SMTP. You don't need a SMTP server on your workstation. Certainly not on your netbook or tablet. But I can't get rid of it! # zypper rm postfix The following NEW package is going to be installed: exim The following package is going to be REMOVED: postfix 1 new package to install, 1 to remove. Overall download size: 1.2 MiB. After the operation, additional 145.0 KiB will be used. Continue? [y/n/p/?] (y): It seems I have to have either Postfix or Exim. Oh, right, I shouldn't have installed it to start with. Well Thank You! Then there's LDAP. Same logic. But its hard-coded in as a requirement for things like passwords. Excuse me? Look, PAM is plugable. In /etc/nsswitch.conf I can select where the various data lives. Why do all the alternatives have to be hard coded compile-time links? Ldap is 'pluggable for Moiall: # rpm -q -a | grep ldap libldap-2_4-2-2.4.23-10.1.i586 yast2-ldap-2.20.1-3.1.i586 yast2-ldap-client-2.20.14.1-0.3.1.noarch mozldap-6.0.7-3.1.i586 openldap2-client-2.4.23-10.1.i586 libldapcpp1-0.2.1-6.1.i586 # rpm -e mozldap-6.0.7-3.1.i586 # echo $? 0 Gone! Good! But # rpm -e libldap-2_4-2-2.4.23-10.1.i586 error: Failed dependencies: liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) dirmngr-1.1.0-4.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) sudo-1.7.2p7-7.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) pwdutils-3.2.14-3.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) openldap2-client-2.4.23-10.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libsmbclient0-3.5.7-1.17.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libldb0-0.9.7-2.17.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libldapcpp1-0.2.1-6.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) samba-client-3.5.7-1.17.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) samba-3.5.7-1.17.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) subversion-1.6.16-1.3.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) postfix-2.7.2-13.14.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libpt2_6_7-2.6.7-12.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) autofs-5.0.5-55.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libkdepimlibs4-4.6.3-4.2.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libcurl4-7.21.2-9.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libapr-util1-1.3.9-9.2.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) dirmngr-1.1.0-4.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) sudo-1.7.2p7-7.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) pwdutils-3.2.14-3.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) openldap2-client-2.4.23-10.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) nfsidmap-0.23-13.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libsmbclient0-3.5.7-1.17.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libldb0-0.9.7-2.17.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libldapcpp1-0.2.1-6.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) gpg2-2.0.16-7.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) cups-1.4.6-6.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) samba-client-3.5.7-1.17.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) samba-3.5.7-1.17.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) subversion-1.6.16-1.3.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) postfix-2.7.2-13.14.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libpt2_6_7-2.6.7-12.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) autofs-5.0.5-55.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libkdepimlibs4-4.6.3-4.2.i586 libldap-2_4-2 = 2.4.23 is needed by (installed) openldap2-client-2.4.23-10.1.i586 Now most of those are ridiculous. The dependency tree all gets back to pwdutils-3.2.14-3.1.i586 (things like getpwent(3). getgrent(3), and gethostbyname(3)) because passwords _could_ be stored in an LDAP repository. But what if they are not? What if this is a "standalone" machine or a laptop that doesn't operate in the kind of network where a LDAP service is available or used? Now I know there are many people who are going to give arguments as to why I'm wrong. I know somone is going to tell me that Postfix is needed so that the underlying system can deliver warning messages. Well that's nonsense! I can think of two counter arguments. The first is the old "well look how Windows does it". Weak, yes, I know. The second is that many people these days don't use local mail. At all. They use something like Gmail with a web browser or read from some other remote repository. I use Thunderbird to read via IMAP from the mail on my mail server. There is NOTHING in my /var/spool/main on my workstation. Yes, I'm smart enough to configure Postfix to punt system mail to my mailserver. But Joe Sixpack isn't. And Postfix is one hell of a big application and configuration setup for something as trivial as that. I wonder how many Linux users that make use of Gmail (or similar) have a slowly increasing /var/spool/mail/root and are unaware of any system problems? Suse as SLED or SLES is great. But not everyone is in a corporate setting and has the IT staff to support Big Linux. Home or SOHO or cloud-oriented instalations don't need all this complication. Its not the 'patterns' that Carl Hartung speaks of, so much as amount of stuff that is hardwired in. Its like pulling at a loose thread on your jumper. You end up with something other than what you actualy wanted. Its enough to drive people away and in search of another vendor or package. BeOS anyone? -- Passwords must be impossible to remember and never written down. All of them. They must be changed every month All of them. 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