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0xC0000022L
Asked: 2014-05-01 16:16:01 +0800 CST

Why does package mercurial depend on x11-common in a chroot'ed environment?

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In relation to a previous question I posed (Make apt-get (or aptitude) run with -y but not prompt for replacement of configuration files?) I came across a somewhat peculiar and hard to explain behavior. Perhaps someone can explain it still.

When I execute the following right after a debootstap inside the target chroot, package mercurial appears to require a lot more than seems logical:

apt-get -s -y -o Dpkg::Options::=--force-confdef -o Dpkg::Options::=--force-confold install mercurial
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
The following extra packages will be installed:
  ca-certificates fontconfig-config fonts-dejavu-core libdrm-intel1
  libdrm-nouveau2 libdrm-radeon1 libelf1 libfontconfig1 libfontenc1
  libfreetype6 libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx libglapi-mesa libice6
  libllvm3.4 libpciaccess0 libsm6 libtcl8.6 libtk8.6 libtxc-dxtn-s2tc0
  libutempter0 libx11-6 libx11-data libx11-xcb1 libxau6 libxaw7 libxcb-dri2-0
  libxcb-dri3-0 libxcb-glx0 libxcb-present0 libxcb-shape0 libxcb-sync1 libxcb1
  libxcomposite1 libxdamage1 libxdmcp6 libxext6 libxfixes3 libxft2 libxi6
  libxinerama1 libxmu6 libxmuu1 libxpm4 libxrandr2 libxrender1 libxshmfence1
  libxss1 libxt6 libxtst6 libxv1 libxxf86dga1 libxxf86vm1 mercurial-common
  openssl tcl tcl8.6 tk tk8.6 x11-common x11-utils xbitmaps xterm
Suggested packages:
  libglide3 qct vim emacs kdiff3 kdiff3-qt kompare meld tkcvs mgdiff
  python-mysqldb python-pygments python-openssl tcl-tclreadline mesa-utils
  xfonts-cyrillic
Recommended packages:
  wish
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  ca-certificates fontconfig-config fonts-dejavu-core libdrm-intel1
  libdrm-nouveau2 libdrm-radeon1 libelf1 libfontconfig1 libfontenc1
  libfreetype6 libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx libglapi-mesa libice6
  libllvm3.4 libpciaccess0 libsm6 libtcl8.6 libtk8.6 libtxc-dxtn-s2tc0
  libutempter0 libx11-6 libx11-data libx11-xcb1 libxau6 libxaw7 libxcb-dri2-0
  libxcb-dri3-0 libxcb-glx0 libxcb-present0 libxcb-shape0 libxcb-sync1 libxcb1
  libxcomposite1 libxdamage1 libxdmcp6 libxext6 libxfixes3 libxft2 libxi6
  libxinerama1 libxmu6 libxmuu1 libxpm4 libxrandr2 libxrender1 libxshmfence1
  libxss1 libxt6 libxtst6 libxv1 libxxf86dga1 libxxf86vm1 mercurial
  mercurial-common openssl tcl tcl8.6 tk tk8.6 x11-common x11-utils xbitmaps
  xterm
0 upgraded, 64 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded.

Looking at the output from apt-cache depends it's beyond me why apt-get decides that these dependencies have to be installed.

As you can see I am passing Dpkg options as described in the above linked question. The main intention behind it is to prevent apt-get and ultimately dpkg from prompting during what is supposed to be an automated installation.

However, I have tried running the same without passing those options and the result is the same.

apt

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    The mercurial package recommends wish, which is a virtual package provided by tk. This is the package that is pulling in all of the X-related packages that you see being installed as dependencies in the chroot.

    What you probably want to do is install mercurial without recommended packages by adding the --no-install-recommends option to apt-get. See this answer for more on avoiding installing recommended package dependencies.

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