[GRASS-dev] CLI!=GUI

[Glynn Clements]

Hamish wrote:

> > > If the only available packages (RPM, .deb, etc) insist
> > > upon installing GUI libraries, complain to the people who
> > > make the packages.
> 
> Paolo:
> > OK, so, now I'm complaining ;) : packagers, please have
> > your saying here.
> 
> disk space is very cheap. package maintaining time is not. IMHO
> unused libraries & a couple extra packages do no real harm

It isn't "a couple". Once you link against wx, you're looking at ~60
extra libraries.

I'd suggest that the core GRASS package shouldn't list X, wxWidgets or
(in 6.x) Python as dependencies.

It shouldn't be necessary to split the actual GRASS distribution into
GUI and non-GUI components. Put everything in the non-GUI package, and
have a separate GUI package which is empty (or contains a single dummy
file if the packaging system doesn't allow empty packages) and exists
solely to hold the GUI-specific dependencies.

[FWIW: I once tried SuSE Linux. It kept wanting to install a good
chunk of KDE because what were essentially command-line tools had been
built with optional (and mostly trivial) GUI features enabled. I
lasted around three days before ditching it for Gentoo.]

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>