mail-notification should suggest (instead of recommend) mail-notification-evolution

[Ruud Mantingh]

Binary package hint: mail-notification

Mail-notification cannot be installed without installing Evolution as well. This should not be. If necessary have it depend on a library file but not on the complete application (and Evolution's dependencies). I do not use Evolution and prefer Thunderbird. I also only use mail-notification for POP mailboxes.

[Marcel Stimberg (marcelstimberg)]

Thank you for your bug report. I do not see a dependency of mail-notification on evolution (please reopen the bug by setting the status back to "New" if I'm wrong), so closing as invalid. mail-notification *does* recommend mail-notification-evolution (which of course depends on evolution) and therefore pulls it in by default.
See here for a workaround: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LucidLynx/ReleaseNotes#Recommended%20packages%20installed%20by%20default

[Ruud Mantingh (ruud-yardhouse-deactivatedaccount)]

Thanks for the reply. I agree that it probably is not a valid bug. Not for mail-notification anyway.
The fact that you call it a workaround hints at the fact that it may be an annoyance to some though.
For some more info and tips see http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1235191

For info only - this is the difference:-

==========================================================================

$ sudo apt-get install mail-notification
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  bogofilter bogofilter-bdb bogofilter-common curl evolution evolution-common evolution-data-server evolution-plugins evolution-webcal fetchyahoo getlive libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libgmime-2.0-2a libio-socket-ssl-perl
  libio-stringy-perl libmime-tools-perl libnet-libidn-perl libnet-ssleay-perl mail-notification-evolution postfix procmail
Suggested packages:
  pax db4.7-util bug-buddy evolution-exchange evolution-dbg evolution-plugins-experimental gnome-pilot-conduits evolution-data-server-dbg libio-socket-inet6-perl postfix-mysql postfix-pgsql postfix-ldap postfix-pcre sasl2-bin
  resolvconf postfix-cdb ufw
The following NEW packages will be installed
  bogofilter bogofilter-bdb bogofilter-common curl evolution evolution-common evolution-data-server evolution-plugins evolution-webcal fetchyahoo getlive libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libgmime-2.0-2a libio-socket-ssl-perl
  libio-stringy-perl libmime-tools-perl libnet-libidn-perl libnet-ssleay-perl mail-notification mail-notification-evolution postfix procmail
0 upgraded, 23 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 9,860kB of archives.
After this operation, 80.5MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

==========================================================================

$ sudo apt-get install mail-notification --no-install-recommends
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libgmime-2.0-2a
Recommended packages:
  mail-notification-evolution getlive fetchyahoo
The following NEW packages will be installed
  libgmime-2.0-2a mail-notification
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 605kB of archives.
After this operation, 2,040kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

==========================================================================

Quite a difference !
As you said the extra stuff is all being pulled in because of mail-notification-evolution being 'recommended'.

Case closed - workaround noted and implemented! :-)

[Marcel Stimberg (marcelstimberg)]

Actually, thinking about it I changed my mind :-) I think it should be considered a bug, mail-notification should suggest instead of recommend mail-notification-evolution ("The Recommends field should list packages that would be found together with this one in all but unusual installations" -- using Thunderbird instead of Evolution seems to be not that uncommon). There's already a Debian bug for this issue. Please add any further comments to that bug.