[Aptitude-devel] Bug#893082: Bug#893082: Recommended packages not installed with safe-upgrade

[Axel Beckert]

Hi,

Laurent Bigonville wrote:
> When doing aptitude safe-upgrade, the recommended package are not
> installed

Interesting point. I'd say this is on purpose. "safe-upgrade" is said
to not update any packages which pull in additional packages.

But this pulls in the question if a package should not be upgraded
with safe-upgrade if it has a new Recommends compared to the installed
version (and installing Recommends by default is not disabled).

And I must admit, I don't know the "right" answer to this question.

But to stay consistent with both (only upgrade packages which don't
pull in new packages and install Recommends by default) it should
probably not update packages with new Recommends (expect if installing
Recommends is disabled in some way), even though this would reduce the
amount of packages upgradable with safe-upgrade.

> even when --with-recommends is passed.

Hrm, I'd say, at least with an explizit --with-recommends it should at
least _not_ upgrade packages with new Recommends to stay consistent.

Then again, that would probably confuse users. Maybe abort and throw
an error message that this command/option combination doesn't make
sense?

> Shouldn't they be installed by default?

Yes, but this still doesn't answer the question how this can be
combined with safe-upgrade at all.

		Regards, Axel
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