I am trying to install an apt package without one of its dependencies (specifically, git without Perl to reduce Docker image size by >50MB).
I can think of two options:
- installing the package without this specific dependency
- installing the package with all dependencies and removing the dependency
afterwards
and I investigated them both, and none of them worked. So my question is: is there a clean way to do it?
Below is what I tried so far.
1. Installing the package without this specific dependency
Most suggestions recommend
apt download git
dpkg
Unfortunately this does not install other dependencies, so git clone fails due to the lack of libcurl.
So in order to fix that, some other suggestions recommend using
apt-get -f install
afterwards, but this command tries to install Perl, which is what I am trying to avoid.
Ok, so I am telling to not touch Perl with:
apt-mark hold perl
but then apt-get -f install tries to remove git.
Ok, so the I am telling to leave git alone:
apt-mark hold git
but then apt-get -f install gives up, as it cannot install Perl and it cannot uninstall git. The end of story.
2. installing the package with all dependencies and removing the dependency
afterwards
I installed git with Perl:
apt install -y git
then removed Perl with
dpkg -P --force-depends perl
but this does not remove other dependencies that have been brought by Perl eg. perl-modules. So the attempt is unsuccessful.
