ant shouldn't recommend ant-gcj

[Alvin Thompson]

Binary package hint: ant

ant-gcj doesn't rise to the high level of a recommends, which basically states that if package 'A' recommends 'B', every conceivable 'normal' setup of 'A' will require 'B'. there are many java runtimes to choose from, most more 'normal' than gcj. since recommends are now treated as dependencies, this forces people to install a slew of packages most people don't need or want. frankly, this package doesn't even rise to the level of a suggests, since ant already depends on java-runtime.

[Alvin Thompson (alvint-deactivatedaccount)]

I believe this was fixed for a while, but now -gcj is back to recommends. what gives?

[LeoRochael (leorochael)]

This recommendation basically means that anyone that has already installed the Sun version of java and tries to install the "eclipse" package ends up with gcj also installed, even though it shouldn't be necessary.

[LeoRochael (leorochael)]

Workaround for karmic, for those unfamiliar with apt. In the console, type:

  sudo apt-get install ant ant-gcj- ant-optional-gcj- gcj-4.4-base- libgcj-common-

[Daniel Dinnyes (dadinn)]

This is a very annoying bug, and it hasn't been touched since :(

[Daniel Dinnyes (dadinn)]

BTW, there are other packages which are still affected by this issue: _ant-optional_ recommends _ant-optional-gcj_ which in turn will install the same _gcj_ dependencies. Also _libdb4.8-java_ recommends the _libdb4.8-java-gcj_ package. These two make installing netbeans or eclipse packages from repository annoying.

As for a good example, please take a look at _antlr3_ and _libantlr3_ which only *suggests* the _antlr3-gcj_ and _libantlr3-gcj_ packages.

[Emmanuel Bourg (ebourg)]

This was fixed 5 years ago in ant/1.8.0-1 and ant-optional/1.8.0-3.