Why is vscode / ms repo added without asking to headless server apt repo?

[best400]

Hello!

After updating the raspberry pi today the Microsofts vscode repo is added without asking to the raspberry pi repo even on my headless server configuration. Few questions:

1. Why?
2. Do I / do the raspberry pi platform need it in the future for some reason?
3.Can I just disable it without any negative effects on my normal server system?

It would be nice to have public info about this kind of moves in advance.

Tnx

[jamesh]

Didn't know we did that, but the reason will be because VSCode is the recommended IDE for the new Pico product and this makes it easier for people to download it if they want.

In usual usage, it won't make any difference to your distribution.

[rpdom]

When you install software with apt or apt-get or aptitude or the add/remove software option there are three categories of associated software:

Depends
This is software that the installed package requires and won't work without. It will always be installed automatically.

Recommends
This is software that the installed package will run without, but some functions may be unavailable.
This is now installed automatically, but used to be left for you to install manually.

Suggests
This is software that adds features to the software that may be desirable, but it not actually needed in most cases. This will not be installed unless you do so manually.

You can tell apt not to install the "Recommends" level, either on the command line using one of these two options:

Code: Select all

apt -o APT::Install-Recommends=False packagename
apt --no-install-recommends packagename
[code]
or by creating a configuration file with "sudo nano /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/90-recommends" and putting this line in it
[code]
APT::Install-Recommends "false";

Note that this might lead to reduced functionality of some packages.

EDIT: I completely missed that a new REPO was added, not just an unexpected package installed. Ignore this post!

[scruss]

My only complaint is about the non-descriptive package descriptions:

Code: Select all

code - Code editing. Redefined.
code-exploration - Code editing. Redefined.
code-insiders - Code editing. Redefined.
…

It gives no indication of what it's going to install, or what it's even for. I mean, Microsoft's Edlin was¹ also "Code editing. Redefined" … redefined as something unrepeatable!

At least it has a passable emacs mode.

---
¹: it's still shipped with 32-bit Windows 10, eek!

[DougieLawson]

Duplicate of viewtopic.php?f=63&t=301011

[crowchops]

@DougieLawson

Also Microsoft seem to have a company wide direction towards supporting Linux systems in a sane, sensible and non-evil way. That's something we should praise them for.

With all due respect, Microsoft was one of the biggest enemies of the free open source software movement in the 90s and did all they could to stifle it. Fast forward to 2021 and most cutting edge enterprise operations utilize FOSS in some way, shape or form because it works well. Microsoft had 3 decades to maintain its lead over competitors like Linux, but they failed to do so (despite possessing significant capital and a captive audience). Instead, Microsoft has taken their usual unimaginative route by buying out any competition, bullying consumers into paying the Windows tax, and opportunistically using open source when it suits them (Edge browser). In any case, their support of Linux features under Win 10 is a concession, and it's sad to see the http://packages.microsoft.com/repos/code being surreptitiously included without any kind of warning or prompt given to Raspbian users.

[thradtke]

Well, MS created a lot of standards by copying existing ones functionality-wise and thereby creating a unique, quite close software ecology being a PITA for Linux developers to hook into it. That's all. Can't blame them for doing so - capitalism works like this and that's ok. It's wanted. Companies want this, the law allows using closed software on our data worldwide. You just can't get out of this.

All in all, this repo seems to add not much damage .

[jamesh]

Theres been an official response, and since this thread has gone down the usual MS bashing rabbit hole its time to close.