up vote 45 down vote favorite
13

I use Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit, I did the following: sudo gedit /etc/apt/apt.conf and added

APT::Install-Recommends "false";
APT::Install-Suggests "false";

But it did not work. When I try to install a package, it still wants to install the suggested and recommended packages. How can I solve this?

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See this related question: askubuntu.com/questions/196059/… – user76204 Oct 24 '12 at 11:10
1  
apt-config dump |fgrep -i recommend will suggest current fashion syntax in case it changes again. – temoto Feb 20 '15 at 15:02
up vote 57 down vote accepted

If you do not want to install recomended packages you can run apt-get with the --no-install-recommends flag or aptitude with the --without-recommends/-R flag.

If you want these flags to always be enabled (I do NOT recommend this) put the following lines in your /etc/apt/apt.conf file:

APT::Get::Install-Recommends "false";
APT::Get::Install-Suggests "false";

Remember that these packages are recommended for a reason and it is probably not a good idea to ignore it at all times. You would be better off using the flags in the cases where you know that the recommended packages are wrong.

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This will work, i can confirm that. – Thomas Ward♦ Aug 22 '12 at 17:46
    
I have already tried that option but I'm trying to install from a ppa and not work, if it has worked installing from ubuntu reposoritorio. – user84911 Aug 22 '12 at 20:47
    
I want to configure apt-get to always, do not install the packages suggested and recommended, so I want to set the file apt.conf sorry for my bad english – user84911 Aug 22 '12 at 20:48
    
Edited post to show what apt.conf should have. – Alex L. Aug 22 '12 at 21:46
    
Reading the packaging documentation I understand that 'recommended' packages should probably be installed. Can you explain why you don't recommend disabling the installation of 'suggested' packages? They seem rather annoying to me so far. – jlh Feb 17 '16 at 21:14
up vote 11 down vote

Checked today (07 Jan 2015).

These settings work well for me:

APT::Install-Recommends "false";
APT::Install-Suggests "false";

This solution does not work:

APT::Get::Install-Recommends "false";
APT::Get::Install-Suggests "false";
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2  
The question is about 12.04. The answer from lan already mentions for later versions it is APT::Install-Recommends so your answer does not add additional information. – Requist Jan 7 '15 at 19:43
2  
You should tell which OS version did you try it with rather than the calendar date. – Melebius Jun 30 '15 at 9:47
up vote 11 down vote

The correct syntax in recent versions appears to be:

APT::Install-Suggests "0";
APT::Install-Recommends "0";

You can put this in /etc/apt/apt.conf (which no longer exists by default) or in a file such as 99local in /etc/apt/conf.d.

Watch out for other files in /etc/apt/conf.d which may override your settings.

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up vote 2 down vote

You might be like me and have an /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99synaptic file lurking around. I'm still not entirely sure where this file came from but it contains one line:

APT::Install-Recommends "true";

That would certainly have overridden a change in /etc/apt/apt.conf. I can't see that the file is used by any package any longer so I would suggest just deleting it (check the contents are similar) or swapping true for false.

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up vote 2 down vote

According to me, changing conf files are too risky and unnecessary. Rather apt-get provides options to specify do not install recommended packages.

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends package-name

This is better than changing conf file.

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up vote 0 down vote

I would recommend creating /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/60user file with the single line:

APT::Install-Recommends "false";

This works fine for me on 12.04.

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2  
OP already stated that this did not work. – Oli♦ Oct 24 '12 at 10:24
    
I checked this on 10.04, 12.04, 14.04 and APT::GET::* dont work, buy APT::Install-* did work well with "apt-get install" – ggrandes Jul 11 '14 at 9:19

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