Bug#1131498: libreoffice: Don't have language packages install libreoffice-common & libreoffice-core

Hi,

Am 22.03.26 um 18:40 schrieb Jeremy Bícha:
> On Sun, Mar 22, 2026 at 12:54 PM Rene Engelhard <[email protected]> wrote:
>> I don't see an issue to be honest. Maybe a nuisance, yes.
>>
>> But I believe this "issue" is just made up or at least made bigger as it is.
> It's not a made-up issue. It forces choosing between something like these:
It's a made-up issue  because it tries to solve an issue which does not exist. And even if it existed is not libreoffice-only but a general one (but you diligently ignored all the other cases and just picked libreoffice)
> 0. Current status quo. Someone installs their desktop with French and
> gets libreoffice-l10n-fr, libreoffice-l10n-common, and
> libreoffice-core installed even if the desktop doesn't provide French.
> This is 268 MB for libreoffice-core
wow. 260M. that is peanuts in todays sizes (yes, even on phones, they have also GB of storage)
> and 213 MB for
> libreoffice-core-nogui which apt may choose instead.

Probably won't since libreoffice-core-nogui is not allowed by -writer etc.

And it intentionally does nt provide -core or so.

So if something installs -writer one definitely gets -core. Unless apt goes havoc.

> 1. My proposal: Someone installs their desktop with French and gets
> libreoffice-l10n-fr installed even if the desktop doesn't provide
> French. This is about 4 MB, but it's not 200 MB. I also do the work to
> have there be a desktop language task for every LibreOffice language
> so every language gets this experience.

No, you don't . If you did you would have asked somewhere more generic and did also firefox and chromium. You just filed it against libreoffice.

Which - in contrast to webbrowsers  or mail (thunderbird also does:

$ apt-cache show thunderbird-l10n-fr
Package: thunderbird-l10n-fr
Source: thunderbird
Version: 1:140.8.0esr-1
Installed-Size: 620
Maintainer: Carsten Schoenert <[email protected]>
Architecture: all
Depends: thunderbird (<< 1:140.8.0esr-1.1~), thunderbird (>= 1:140.8.0esr-1)
Recommends: hunspell-fr | myspell-fr | myspell-fr-gut
Description-en: French language package for Thunderbird
  Thunderbird is an mail client suitable for free distribution. The goal of
  Thunderbird is to produce a cross platform stand-alone mail application using
  the XUL user interface language.
  .
  This package contains the localization of Thunderbird in French.
Description-md5: a5c73c0e67f31c1a9306bc3e15e44f86
Homepage: https://wiki.mozilla.org/L10n:Teams:fr
Section: localization
Priority: optional
Filename: pool/main/t/thunderbird/thunderbird-l10n-fr_140.8.0esr-1_all.deb
Size: 474536
MD5sum: 1d710e77a7c05b7d9f70a115df570910
SHA256: 21076586baaa7fbf91b96c43043852d7adf99b08cd1d8d8ffbfbe7cc7036d553

- but is not in the tasks except for japanese for some reason it seems...)

is not 100% needed on a desktop :)

> 2. I think I can paraphrase your position by saying that you refuse to
> make the libreoffice-l10* dependencies on libreoffice-core and
> libreoffice-common lower than Recommends.
Basically, yes.
> One way forward is to make
> the changes so that everyone who installs Debian in a language other
> than English will get those 200MB of LibreOffice files installed.
>
> 3. Or we don't include libreoffice-l10n in any of the language tasks.
If the language exists. But that is what is done right now, no?
> 4. Or we add individualized desktop language tasks for every
> combination of language and desktop. That could add hundreds of binary
> packages. Maybe I try to use Provides to reduce this number so that
> the acutal number of binary packages is more like 90+ for desktops
> that include LibreOffice by default plus another 90+ for the other
> desktops.

I agree that this isn't worthwile.

>
> 5. Or someone adds a workaround to the Debian installers so that it
> doesn't install the LibreOffice recommends when LibreOffice isn't
> installed. This is kinda equivalent to lowering the l10n dependencies
> on -common and -core to Suggests. It makes the experience different if
> someone installs the tasks separately afterwards.

Yeah,maybe. I've done that too but how common is that?


Regards,


Rene