Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What is the best course of action?

From	David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk>
Newsgroups	linux.debian.user
Subject	Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What is the best course of action?
Date	2022-02-13 01:40 +0100
Message-ID	<DQb5L-1ppW-1@gated-at.bofh.it> (permalink)
References	<DQ3rz-1kQB-5@gated-at.bofh.it>
Organization	linux.* mail to news gateway

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On Sat 12 Feb 2022 at 17:03:06 (+0100), Stella Ashburne wrote:
> I did a minimal install of LXQt:
> 
> sudo apt install lxqt-core lightdm
> 
> and discovered that the following two packages were installed as well:
> 
> libthai-data/stable,now 0.1.28-3 all [installed,automatic]
> libthai0/stable,now 0.1.28-3 amd64 [installed,automatic]

Installing those two would add 170 more packages to my system, so
I presume quite a lot more besides those two were installed on yours.

> *I do not speak or write Thai*

Nor I.

> When I did the following
> 
> sudo apt remove libthai*
> 
> I was very surprised to see that many packages that I think are essential to running Debian properly would be removed if I answered "Yes" to the question "Do you want to continue?"
> 
> What should I do?

You should type:

$ apt-cache rdepends libthai0

and notice that the printed list includes libpango-1.0-0.
So now type:

$ apt-cache rdepends libpango-1.0-0 | less

and that shows the cause of your problem. Whether or not
you read Thai, in order to typeset a document that contains,
say, an aphorism in a foreign language, you need to at least
know how to lay out that language, which includes how its
words break or are spaced.

>From a very superficial reading of APT-ish metadata, I'd guess
that you might have spotted the language Thai because there
are some wrinkles in pango's support for it, and perhaps those
led to libthai* being linked to it.

Anyway, the upshot is that you'll have a job to run a system
without pango's support for text.

> What is the best course of action?

Leave it. Worry about bigger issues than the odd library.

Cheers,
David.

Thread

Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What is  the best course of action? Stella Ashburne <rewefie@gmx.com> - 2022-02-12 17:30 +0100
  Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What is  the best course of action? Bijan Soleymani <bijan@psq.com> - 2022-02-12 17:40 +0100
    Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What  is the best course of action? Stella Ashburne <rewefie@gmx.com> - 2022-02-12 22:40 +0100
      Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What is  the best course of action? David <bouncingcats@gmail.com> - 2022-02-12 23:30 +0100
        Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What  is the best course of action? Stella Ashburne <rewefie@gmx.com> - 2022-02-13 07:40 +0100
          Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What is  the best course of action? Andy Smith <andy@strugglers.net> - 2022-02-13 12:00 +0100
  Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What is  the best course of action? David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2022-02-13 01:40 +0100
    Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What  is the best course of action? Stella Ashburne <rewefie@gmx.com> - 2022-02-13 07:40 +0100
      Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What is  the best course of action? Andy Smith <andy@strugglers.net> - 2022-02-13 12:00 +0100
      Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What is  the best course of action? David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2022-02-13 18:10 +0100
        Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What  is the best course of action? Stella Ashburne <rewefie@gmx.com> - 2022-02-14 11:20 +0100
          Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What is  the best course of action? "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2022-02-14 17:30 +0100
            Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What is the best course of action? Emanuel Berg <moasenwood@zoho.eu> - 2022-02-15 08:20 +0100
          Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What is  the best course of action? David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2022-02-15 00:20 +0100
            Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What is  the best course of action? <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2022-02-15 07:50 +0100
              Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What is  the best course of action? David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2022-02-15 17:10 +0100
                Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What is  the best course of action? <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2022-02-15 18:10 +0100
              Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What  is the best course of action? Stella Ashburne <rewefie@gmx.com> - 2022-02-15 18:30 +0100
                Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What is  the best course of action? <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2022-02-15 18:40 +0100
            Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What  is the best course of action? Stella Ashburne <rewefie@gmx.com> - 2022-02-15 18:40 +0100
              Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What is  the best course of action? <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2022-02-15 19:00 +0100
                Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What  is the best course of action? Stella Ashburne <rewefie@gmx.com> - 2022-02-15 19:10 +0100
                Re: Uninstalling a package removes other essential packages: What is  the best course of action? <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2022-02-15 21:30 +0100

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