Amusements in dependency trees

 So one of the things I've been doing is slimming down some of our installs, I mean why does a server need KDE installed?  Some of this goes back to the days when we didn't have things like 'yum' to just deal with dependencies and to install stuff on demand so to speak.  What did we do back then?  Well we did a "install everything" mentality.  This has some advantages, but as time has progressed it's become more and more of a liability and I'm slimming our installs down to what we need vs. everything.

That said I keep finding some amusing chains that make you scratch your head:

• yum-updatesd (a server daemon that deals with automatically updating the system) requires libpng (the library to render png images)
  • Other things that depend on libpng:
    
    • dbus-python - D-Bus python bindings for use with python programs.
    • gobject-introspection - scan C header and source files in order to generate introspection "typelib" files
    • jed - console text editor
    • slang-slsh - Interpreter for S-Lang scripts
    • system-config-network-tui - command line / curses based network configuration programs
    • yp-tools - NIS (or YP) client programs
    • ypbind - NIS daemon which binds NIS clients to an NIS domain
    • yum-updatesd - Update notification daemon
• ImageMagick (a series of command line image manipulation tools) requires avahi (the Zeroconf automatic network setup system daemon)
• Everything and it's monkey's uncle is dependent on nss-softokn-freebl

Just random things I've noticed, it's mostly amusing to find how certain dependency trees act.  These aren't perfect representations, and there's usually weirdness involved in any absolute dependency tree, like the one RPM uses.

Just sharing my amusement with the weirdness that is my job.