Hacker News Reader

I actually use apt-get because I like to keep my system with the least amount of packages installed. I don't need any of the "recommended" packages, and if I do I'd install them manually.

Also, I usually use deborphan to find orphaned packages and remove them, if apt-get autoremove didn't find them.

View on HN

Recommends are handled the same way by both tools nowadays. There are configuration options and flags to switch them off it you prefer.

You probably already know this, but apt-get defaults to installing recommended packages since Debian Lenny. Ubuntu may have been doing it for longer. To disable this, you have to set 'APT::Install-Recommends "false";' in apt.conf

Reply on news.ycombinator.com