Hi,

Upon upgrade of evolution-common I noticed that the package is 45MB in
size (70MB installed size). This is a major difference compared to the
version shipped with Etch (9.5MB, 28MB installed).

Just wondering if this is normal.

Looking at the file list on packages.debian.org, the increase in size
appears to come from the additional help languages. Any chance these
will be split into additional packages, so the install size of evolution
can be reduced?

Greetings,

Rik

Inspecting the list of files provided by this package, it seems that the
images files installed in /usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/ may be copied twice
or even more times, contributing at least to 25Mb

$ du --max-depth=1 -h /usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/
424K	/usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/en_GB
4,9M	/usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/C
3,3M	/usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/es
3,9M	/usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/fr
2,9M	/usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/sv
548K	/usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/ru
4,8M	/usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/de
424K	/usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/oc
424K	/usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/el
2,3M	/usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/cs
444K	/usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/mk
25M	/usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/

$ ls -l `locate evo_backup.png`
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 15031 mar  8 15:31 /usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/C/figures/evo_backup.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 19141 mar  8 15:31 /usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/cs/figures/evo_backup.png
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    30 mar 11 00:43 /usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/de/figures/evo_backup.png -> ../../C/figures/evo_backup.png
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    30 mar 11 00:43 /usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/el/figures/evo_backup.png -> ../../C/figures/evo_backup.png
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    30 mar 11 00:43 /usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/en_GB/figures/evo_backup.png -> ../../C/figures/evo_backup.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 20203 mar  8 15:31 /usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/es/figures/evo_backup.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 19660 mar  8 15:31 /usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/fr/figures/evo_backup.png
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    30 mar 11 00:43 /usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/mk/figures/evo_backup.png -> ../../C/figures/evo_backup.png
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    30 mar 11 00:43 /usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/oc/figures/evo_backup.png -> ../../C/figures/evo_backup.png
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    30 mar 11 00:43 /usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/ru/figures/evo_backup.png -> ../../C/figures/evo_backup.png
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    30 mar 11 00:43 /usr/share/gnome/help/evolution/sv/figures/evo_backup.png -> ../../C/figures/evo_backup.png

[…]

Besides the symlinks, it seems obvious that all “duplicates” files are
distinct. Looking at them, that's because they are localised. I think
it's a good idea to have the help localised when possible. What exactly
would be the solution then?

evolution-common 2.30.2-1 is now:

Version: 2.30.2-1
Installed-Size: 60792
Size: 28767500

so it's better than before. Now, maybe help files could be splitted to
an evolution-help package but:

- that won't happen before squeeze;
- I'm not sure adding yet another binary package is nice;
- people who need help will have problems installing external help
package

so if I split, I'll add a Recommends: from evolution, and I'm still not
persuaded it's a good idea.

Stay tuned, anyway (but don't hold your breathe).

Cheers,