https://github.com/rgson/cinnamon-desktop-environment-lite

Debian metapackage with weaker relationships to the Cinnamon extra components
https://github.com/rgson/cinnamon-desktop-environment-lite

Last synced: 13 days ago
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Debian metapackage with weaker relationships to the Cinnamon extra components

• Host: GitHub
• URL: https://github.com/rgson/cinnamon-desktop-environment-lite
• Owner: rgson
• Created: 2019-07-28T16:20:04.000Z (over 5 years ago)
• Default Branch: master
• Last Pushed: 2019-07-28T16:40:04.000Z (over 5 years ago)
• Last Synced: 2024-11-15T02:35:27.330Z (2 months ago)
• Language: Perl
• Size: 2.93 KB
• Stars: 0
• Watchers: 2
• Forks: 0
• Open Issues: 0
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: README.md

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README

        
# cinnamon-desktop-environment-lite

This metapackage corresponds to the full Cinnamon desktop environment for

Debian, but with weaker relationships to the extra components to enable the

removal of unwanted components without removing the entire package.

## Background

Installing Debian with Cinnamon brings along a collection of software that is

useless to many users (e.g. Thunderbird, LibreOffice, various games).

Uninstalling the undesirable software is hard because the

[`cinnamon-desktop-environment`][1] metapackage depends (`Depends`) on these

packages. Removing them will thus break the dependency, causing the entire

desktop environment to be uninstalled. Even though these packages should

arguably be optional (`Recommends`/`Suggests`), this [will not change][3].

One solution (or work-around, if you will) is to install a more liberal,

equivalent metapackage (i.e. this one) instead, to preserve any desired

components while enabling the removal of others.

## Implementation

The package is a trivial metapackage (no content, only dependencies) build with

[`equivs`][2]. The package's `control` file is generated based on the original

`cinnamon-desktop-environment`'s control file, but with weaker

relationships to all non-essential extra packages. `Depends` becomes

`Recommends` and `Recommends` becomes `Suggests`.

## Usage

1. Install `cinnamon-desktop-environment-lite`

2. Remove `cinnamon-desktop-environment`

3. Remove any undesirable software

```sh

# Build and install the new metapackage

make && dpkg -i cinnamon-desktop-environment-lite_*.deb

# Remove the old metapackage

apt remove cinnamon-desktop-environment

# Remove any undesirable software, for example the GNOME games collection

apt remove gnome-games

```

[1]: https://packages.debian.org/stable/cinnamon-desktop-environment

[2]: https://packages.debian.org/stable/equivs

[3]: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=771418