systemd discussion

[Michael Ekstrand]

On 06/16/2011 05:09 AM, JB wrote:
> JB <jb.1234abcd <at> gmail.com> writes:
> See previous post.
> 
> Why is avahi dependent on (I have a LXDE desktop):
> gnomebaker - CD/DVD burner
> lxde-common - configuration files for LXDE
> lxmusic - music client
> pcmanfm - PCMan File Manager
> pidgin - instant messaging client
> etc.
> 
> Can anybody help ?

Avahi is not dependent on those things.  Those things are dependent on
Avahi.  Further, the part you snipped in the original post shows the
path that yum took to get to each program.

Avahi is required by the GNOME VFS layer (probably to find network file
systems), which is in turn used by GnomeBaker and pcmanfm.  Pidgin
probably supports local network messaging, which is based on Zeroconf
and therefore uses Avahi.  xmms evidently also requires Avahi (network
audio source detection? DAAP music sharing?), and lxmusic requires xmms.

This is further forced by the fact that RPM does not support optional
dependencies, unlike Debian's package system.  Therefore, the only way
for a package to say "you should really have this" is to depend on it
(assuming that VFS can even function without avahi).

But the bottom line is: Avahi is used by some core libraries like the
VFS layer, which in turn are used by your applications.  Taking it off
requires them to go as well.  You could try disabling Avahi (look at
Lennart's blog posts for how to force systemd not to enable certain
services) to avoid the run-time overhead if you really want.

- Michael