From my understanding, the gnome-desktop-environment metapackage intends to serve as the "minimal" alternative to the gnome metapackage.

(By the way, could you fix the markup you use for the comment textarea so it doesn't include eight spaces in its initial content?)

You're right. I get these meta-packages confused, and I have my own "minimal" version on my own machine(s).

I've updated the textarea markup now. Thanks!

Hi! Could you please do an ITP for this little one that would be brilliant speciallly when you install it on a small device (such as an eee-pc).

I think that the preferences that I have for a "minimal GNOME desktop" are not going to be universal.

e.g. I see no need for eog, gedit, epiphany-browser, or other packages that others might prefer.

So with that in mind, and given how easy it is to make meta-only-packages, via equivs, I won't be submitting an ITP. However if an official one does surface I'd probably use it in preference to my own - providing it didn't install packages I don't like ... ;)

This sounds like an argument in favour of metapackages using Recommends rather than Depends. If gnome-core/gnome-d-e only Recommended things, you could (for instance) select the metapackage in aptitude, observe that eog was also selected for installation, mark eog as removed, then proceed to install gnome-but-without-eog. (This might only work in the curses UI, I don't know.)

Having said that, if you care enough about the exact software that's installed that having eog installed is unacceptable to you, you're probably not the target audience for a metapackage...

There's gnome-core if you want the minimal stuff, and install your own selection on top of it.

AFAIK Ubuntu has a patch which allows you to uninstall dependencies from packages in the "metapackage" category. Maybe I'd make sense to do the same in Debian.

Why would you need a meta package, if you like customizing your desktop? The only reason I know for meta-packages is to provide a default environment and to let Debian easily change that default environment to add/change packages later. If you don't want the default Debian Gnome desktop environment anyway, why would you need a meta package for the desktop - or am I dumb and is there some other way of using meta-packages?

Meta-package save time and ensure that as I move around computers I don't get surprised that a particular package is missing.

In the past I had both "steve-desktop", and "steve-server" packages that would pull in apropriate packages. The latter would install mutt, screen, less, sudo, vim, for example.

These days I don't have an up to date server meta-package , but I do find the desktop one ideal. The only reason I mention it was because I do find it solves a problem:

• You might want to ensure all the stuff you care about is present. Easily.
• And at the same time might not want the full GNOME experience.

On that basis it is a win. As you suggest the the more manual approach of just not installing gnome-desktop-environment and doing things by hand is just as valid. It just takes longer, and if you have a few desktop systems it becomes a pain.

Even for small things automation is a win though, IMHO.

Emilo: gnome-core still installs too much. (As mentioned previously eog and gedit are two in particular; I have qiv & emacs...)

There would be little value into reducing the set of packages in gnome-core any further. The idea of gnome-core is that you can log in and have something useful and functional. Without an image viewer and a text editor, you don’t even have a desktop computer, but a plastic box with a keyboard and a mouse.

As for the suggestions to move everything to Recommends like Ubuntu does: this just doesn’t work as expected with the current APT design. It would install the initial system fine, for sure. But when it comes to upgrades, newly added Recommends will not be installed automatically. Furthermore, aptitude has a tendency to remove packages that are not in Depends as soon as something is wrong (e.g. a transient dependency issue in unstable). In the long run, I don’t think this idea scales well.

Your reply makes sense, Steve. I should probably do one for my three systems at home.

I like your blog btw!