Unexpected unneeded packages

Ask Fedora
, ,
1

Making an image, with this in the beginning:

FROM registry.fedoraproject.org/fedora-minimal:44

COPY dnf.conf /etc/dnf/dnf.conf

RUN dnf --assumeyes \
        install \
        curl ffmpeg git ripgrep tar xz

The dnf.conf is:

[main]
gpgcheck=1
clean_requirements_on_remove=True
install_weak_deps=False
tsflags=nodocs

Dependencies should be fairly small:

$ dnf repoquery --depends curl ffmpeg git ripgrep tar xz | wc -l
Updating and loading repositories:
Repositories loaded.
47

Definitely nothing which should pull in the whole Wayland and parts of Gnome.

Yet, when podman build runs it on Fedora 44 Workstation, it does, pulls a bunch of GUI and other auxiliary packages (331 total). I can’t seem to be able to figure out what triggers it.

What is a way to limit the dnf install scope?

2

The ffmeg does requires a bunch of gui stuff, and that can be satisfied by different set of packages. If you don’t specify the desktop environment, it is a bit arbitrary which gui packages will be included to satisfy the requirements. If you don’t want any gui stuff, then leave out the ffmpeg package.

3

Removing ffmpeg from the command reduces the list indeed. It is required in this project, though, so other things start to break.

A couple follow-up questions:

  1. Where do you see the dependencies? The query returns none:
    $ dnf repoquery --depends ffmpeg | wc -l
    Updating and loading repositories:
    Repositories loaded.
    0
  1. This is for a minimal and lightweight container to run an agent, which requires ffmpeg for processing visuals. How do people deal with that bloat if ffpmeg is needed in an image?
4

Well, the correct dependency chain starts with sdl2-compat, and branches from there. The reason it was not visible on the ffmpeg package is because it is actually ffmpeg-free package, and dnf completely obfuscates the fact, so annoying.

I did not find a way for decline this crazy dependency tree. For now I am sourcing ffmpeg.org’s pre-build static binaries to get around this nasty. But will think hard to pick another setup (maybe not Fedora) for the next project.