On 09/12/2017 03:27 PM, Giancarlo Razzolini wrote:
We have discussed this on IRC and this has been a recurring theme over the years. I see two main things that derive from this:
1) base is assumed or not? I know some developers don't assume base and list it on their packages dependencies.
We have been telling our users that base is assumed since at least 2009 [0]
2) The second thing that arises from the first is a broader question which is what do we consider a minimal arch installation?
If the answer to this question is base, then we certainly *must* have systemd on it. And we can discuss trimming it down, because I think that base has some packages that shouldn't be there such as, netctl and dhcpcd (I use both).
If the answer is not base, then we should have something like a base-system group which contains the bare minimum, like linux, glibc, pacman, systemd and its dependencies.
But we must decide on this and make it a policy/standard so things like [1] do not happen anymore. That's just one example, there are many others.
Regards, Giancarlo Razzolini
[0] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php?title=Makepkg&oldid=77357 [1] https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/55101
And now we are even getting things like https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/55635 which attempt to justify yet more such bugreports based on the mere fact that this a-d-p thread exists, while assuming the answer you all decide upon. This has finally gone from confusing to downright annoying; after all the times this was discussed here and on arch-general etc. it seems the community has become interested enough for the self-appointed dependency police to start campaigning. Hopefully I am wrong... I really want to see a standard policy for this. Assuming my opinion holds any weight whatsoever, I'd like to see a base-system (or a trimmed-down base) in preference to adding dependencies like glibc/bash to the vast majority of packages... I also agree that a metapackage is nicer than a group. If we are going to stick to an official policy for a base system, people should not be able to remove parts on a whim or neglect parts that become part of the base system when the next initscripts-to-systemd migration or whatever happens (and then complain that things break). -- Eli Schwartz