[FEATURE REQUEST][download requirements] Simplify package dependency management

[to-bar]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. Feature related to #805

We handle automatically only direct package dependencies (the first level in dependency tree).

Consider the following dependency tree:

A requires B B requires C C requires D D requires E

To add a new package to Epiphany now we have to:

1. Check dependency tree (on two distributions)
2. Add (and maintain) to requirements file packages A, C, E (B and D resolved automatically as direct dependencies)
3. Check whether any package is a core package - present in minimal OS installation
4. Add to the requirements file non-core packages with comment for dependent packages why they have been added

In the past we had a PR related to this issue (see #871).

Describe the solution you'd like A clear and concise description of what you want to happen.

Describe alternatives you've considered

1. Add to requirements file only package A
2. Define and maintain list of core packages - they will be excluded from list of packages to be downloaded
3. Query all dependencies of package A (--recurse flag on Ubuntu) and download all except for the core ones*

• we had issues with dependency resolution on RHEL 7 using repoquery. To be checked on RHEL 8.

Additional context

Example: For Grafana we would like to define only one package (grafana) but now we have additionally:

• dejavu-sans-fonts
• libX11
• libxcb
• libXcursor
• libXt
• urw-base35-fonts
• xorg-x11-font-utils
• xorg-x11-server-utils

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DoD checklist

• Changelog
  • [ ] updated
  • [ ] not needed
• COMPONENTS.md
  • [ ] updated
  • [ ] not needed
• Schema
  • [ ] updated
  • [ ] not needed
• Backport tasks
  • [ ] created
  • [ ] not needed
• Documentation
  • [ ] added
  • [ ] updated
  • [ ] not needed
• [ ] Feature has automated tests
• [ ] Automated tests passed (QA pipelines)
  • [ ] apply
  • [ ] upgrade
  • [ ] backup/restore
• [ ] Idempotency tested
• [ ] All conversations in PR resolved
• [ ] Solution meets requirements and is done according to design doc
• [ ] Usage compliant with license

[seriva]

@sbbroot @to-bar This should be probably dependent on #3094 ?

[tomasz-baran]

@seriva I would recommend to do this task before #3094 in order to have less packages specified in requirements so it would be easier to group them by component and potentially achieve a better level of the optimization.

[seriva]

@seriva I would recommend to do this task before #3094 in order to have less packages specified in requirements so it would be easier to group them by component and potentially achieve a better level of the optimization.

Cool, so I will make #3094 dependent on this one then:)