[Pkg-libvirt-maintainers] Bug#758477: libguestfs0: more and more dependencies

[Christoph Anton Mitterer]

Package: libguestfs0
Version: 1:1.26.7-1+b1
Severity: normal


Hey.

libguestfs seems to have an ever growing list of dependencies.


Some of them seem to be packages which have similar or same
functionality, e.g. gdisk/parted.

module-init-tools is a dummy.


Many others may very well be required for some functionality, which
is offered by libguestfs, which is however not used at all by most
people.

Recently, we got two bootmanagers (extlinux, syslinux).
Or what about mdadm, lvm2, btrfs-tools, cryptsetup, dosfstools,
mtools, gdisk, lsscsi, ntfs-3g, jfsutils, icoutils.
I mean I don't use any of these with my guest images but have to
install them and their dependecies.
Same for supermin,... never used it.
Or vim-tiny... why do I have to install that, if I've already
installed any of the full fledged vim packages?!



I mean it's okay if you depend on stuff that's needed for core-
functionality, but I'd guess that most of the above should be
rather recommends, and libguestfs should be so smart to detect
whether something is installed or not.

Look for example at the devscripts package, which also offers
a broad range of functionality which includes lots of dependencies,
but which handles this quite gracefully.

For now, *guestfs* has to go to the trash. :(


Cheers,
Chris.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.14-2-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_DE.utf8, LC_CTYPE=en_DE.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages libguestfs0 depends on:
ii  binutils           2.24.51.20140814-1
ii  bsdmainutils       9.0.5
ii  btrfs-tools        3.14.1-1
ii  cpio               2.11+dfsg-2
ii  cryptsetup         2:1.6.4-4
ii  diffutils          1:3.3-1
ii  dosfstools         3.0.26-3
ii  file               1:5.19-1
ii  icoutils           0.31.0-2
ii  iproute            1:3.16.0-1
ii  jfsutils           1.1.15-2.1
ii  kmod               18-1
ii  ldmtool            0.2.3-3
ii  libaugeas0         1.0.0-1.1
ii  libc6              2.19-9
ii  libfuse2           2.9.3-15
ii  libmagic1          1:5.19-1
ii  libpcre3           1:8.35-3
ii  libselinux1        2.3-1
ii  libvirt0           1.2.7-8
ii  libxml2            2.9.1+dfsg1-4
ii  libyajl2           2.1.0-1
ii  lsof               4.86+dfsg-1
ii  lvm2               2.02.106-2
ii  multiarch-support  2.19-9
ii  net-tools          1.60-26
ii  netpbm             2:10.0-15+b2
ii  ntfs-3g            1:2014.2.15AR.1-5
ii  parted             3.2-4
ii  procps             1:3.3.9-7
ii  qemu-system-x86    2.1+dfsg-3
ii  reiserfsprogs      1:3.6.24-1
ii  scrub              2.5.2-2.1
ii  strace             4.8-1.1
ii  supermin           100
ii  udev               208-7
ii  vim-tiny           2:7.4.335-1
ii  xfsprogs           3.2.1
ii  xz-utils           5.1.1alpha+20120614-2
ii  zerofree           1.0.3-1
ii  zfs-fuse           0.7.0-12

libguestfs0 recommends no packages.

libguestfs0 suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information