Removing evolution removes gnome-panel

[glkpspam]

Binary package hint: gnome-panel

Inexplicably, removing Evolution (via Synaptec) from a fresh 8.04 Desktop install automatically and unavoidably removes gnome-panel. There is no reason why this package should be tied to Evolution in such a way.

[Danilo Penna Queiroz (daniloqueiroz)]

The gnome-panel packages depends of libedataserverui1.2-8 packages, which in its turns depends of evolution-data-server-common.

However gnome-panel has no direct dependencie of evolution, so it's possible to remove the evolution package withou remove gnome-panel.

[Sameer D. Sahasrabuddhe (sameerds)]

I found this bug when I had a similar problem. I don't agree that the bug is invalid. The answer that "evolution" is not a dependency is insufficient. Even if the package called "evolution" is removable, gnome-panel still depends on libedataserverui, which is described as "GUI utility library for evolution-data-server". As an end user, that still means that gnome-panel is dependent on Evolution, the software and not "evolution" the package. I never use evolution and I don't see why this must be installed just to make gnome-panel work.

This bug should be reopened. See this thread for more discussion:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-panel/+bug/240097

[Sameer D. Sahasrabuddhe (sameerds)]

Oops! With reference to the comment above, this is the URL I intended to post:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=883016

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

how does it make a difference to users if a lib called libedataserverui is installed? upstream has no intention to rename the library only because the naming is similar to the evolution software one and some users don't want it installed because of that, the library is being used in those applications; takes almost not disk space and no ressources, it's not an issue

[Sameer D. Sahasrabuddhe (sameerds)]

Dependencies that are installed by libedataserverui1.2-8

Agreed that the dataserverui library might be needed by gnome-panel, since it shows up in popcon as very recently used. But the following dependencies have no business sitting on a system that does not use Evolution.

evolution-data-server-common
This package contains the architecture independent files needed by the evolution-data-server package.
8053k

libebook1.2-9
Client library for evolution address books
356k

libedataserver1.2-9
This package is a utility library for evolution-data-server.
291k

libcamel1.2-11
The Evolution MIME message handling library
938k

[Sameer D. Sahasrabuddhe (sameerds)]

I had a look at the gnome-panel source ... the dependence on libedataserverui package arises only because of the clock applet. The library is not essential for the gnome panel itself. Unlike other applets in the gnome-panel source, this is the only package which depends on an external program. That external dependence itself is optional, since the clock applet can be built without support for Evolution.

So I think this is still a valid packaging bug. Simply removing the package dependency is not enough. For that to work, the clock applet should be packaged separately, ideally as two different builds --- one with evolution support, one without. Simply separating the clock applet is also not enough --- people will have to install the Evolution packages just to get a clock onto the panel.

Agreed that the size of the dependencies involved is still not much, but they do show up in system updates. The current situation is not "clean", since one piece of software is installing another piece that is not necessary for its proper functioning.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

there are lot of libraries installed only for some option, you can start chasing all of those but that's going to require lot of packaging changes, multibuild, conflicts, installation complexity, etc for no real win for users, that's not something ubuntu wants to change, you can use gentoo if you need to have control on every configure option