Hello there,
I’m still fairly new to OpenSuse and the way I understand it both zypper and Yast Software by default install all recommended packages when installing a package.
I have turned this off now and wonder if there is an easy way to make it so that Yast Software (or zypper) ask you which of the recommended packages you want to install additionally. This would be my prefered way to install packages and to me seems more convenient than either always installing everything or having to look up and install the desired recommended packages manually and at least in the case of Yast Software also seems like something that could easily implemented into the current UI if it doesn’t already exist.
You seem to be worried about the amount of disk space the recommended packages take in case you assume you never need some of them?
Not imminently, no. I mostly just don’t want to install any packages that I know I won’t have any need for.
As you said, you can switch off the installation of recommended packages. when you do so at the installation, I assume you won’t get them.
OTOH, I assume the choice made to include packages in the recommended list is done with care and why it most probably is true that some people will not use some of them, not having such a list will not help new people to get a reasonable functional system on first installation.
I routinely uncheck some packages at installation (and lock them), I never tried to find out if they were recommended or not. But that is because I really do not want them because they irritate me (like PackageKit).
Well none of this answers my initial question tbh. So I assume there currently is no option to quickly manually select recommended packages? If so, whag would be a good place to make that suggestion?
zypper allows for recommended packages:
erlangen:~ # **zypper dup**
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Warning: You are about to do a distribution upgrade with all enabled repositories. Make sure these repositories are compatible before you continue. See 'man zypper' for more information about this command.
Computing distribution upgrade...
**Nothing to do.**
erlangen:~ # **zypper dup --recommends**
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Warning: You are about to do a distribution upgrade with all enabled repositories. Make sure these repositories are compatible before you continue. See 'man zypper' for more information about this command.
Computing distribution upgrade...
The following 8 NEW packages are going to be installed:
avahi avahi-lang libavahi-core7 libdaemon0 libdbus-glib-1-2-32bit nss-mdns nss-mdns-32bit perl-RPM2
**8 new packages to install.**
Overall download size: 627.7 KiB. Already cached: 0 B. After the operation, additional 1.8 MiB will be used.
Continue? [y/n/v/...? shows all options] (y): n
erlangen:~ #
You may change zypp.conf accordingly.
If available install patterns. These recommend packages.
When I start YaST > Software > Software Management and then from the View menu choose Package Classification, there is Recommended packages. Gives a long, long list.
I am not sure how it is generated and thus can not give you a zypper equivalent.
**erlangen:~ #** rpm -q --recommends patterns-kde-kde
MozillaFirefox
ark
avahi
discover
dolphin
gwenview5
kate
kcalc
kipi-plugins
konsole
okular
pattern() = games
pattern() = kde_internet
pattern() = kde_pim
pattern() = kde_utilities
pattern() = kde_yast
pattern() = multimedia
pattern() = office
skanlite
spectacle
yast2-control-center-qt
**erlangen:~ #**
Mhh, looks like I didn’t express myself very clearly.
What I mean is that if I install a specific package and want to choose on a case-by-case which of the recommended packages to also install with it, there is no convenient way to do that (as far as I know).
I can either select to install all recommended packages, but then I have to track and keep in mind which of the packages Yast shows me will be installed were the recommended ones, unselect them and even then I might miss some of the dependencies that are there for the recommended packages exclusively.
Or I could choose to not install recommended packages, then I’d have to look up all the recommended packages beforehand, choose which I want and manually search them up and add them to the queue.
It would be a lot easier if in those cases when I pick a certain package to install, it would show me a seperate dialogue or just visually distinguish the recommended from the other packages, so I could confidently select and unselect them without running the risk of unselecting something that is required.
“yast2 sw_single > Patterns > Select pattern” allows for this. Deselect individual packages if not desired. Deselecting a required package will be blocked or issue a notification.