Bonum Certa Men Certa

Latest Debian GNU/Linux Installs Gnote When Mono is Removed

Debian



Summary: Interesting decision from Debian developers/packagers, who help those that reject and eject Mono

It has been a while since we last wrote about Mono, the Microsoft tyrant inside GNU/Linux. Tomboy continues to be a leading Mono promotion tool even though a superior substitute (faster and smaller) written in C++ exists and is freely available without the Microsoft patent risk.



One contributor of ours said: "when I uninstalled 'mono-runtime' it removed a bunch of mono stuff. Then it continued on to install gnote, something I had not requested.

"I'm wondering what went wrong with the Debian team that they allowed Mono in there at all."

"Debian should be made clean again," he added. "It used to be the distro that was most about Freedom. I guess that crown has now moved to Trisquel and Gnewsense instead.

"Below is a capture from the terminal of a freshly installed Debian 7.1 (Wheezy) system. I used the debian-7.0.0-i386-netinst.iso image from their web site. I'll keep a snapshot of that VM around for a day so if more is needed."

Here is the terminal output:




root@debian ~# lsb_release -rd Description: Debian GNU/Linux 7.1 (wheezy) Release: 7.1 root@debian:~# dpkg -l mono* Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold | Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend |/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad) ||/ Name Version Architecture Description +++-==============-============-============-================================= un mono-1.0-runti (no description available) un mono-2.0-runti (no description available) ii mono-4.0-gac 2.10.8.1-8 all Mono GAC tool (for CLI 4.0) un mono-common (no description available) ii mono-gac 2.10.8.1-8 all Mono GAC tool un mono-jit (no description available) ii mono-runtime 2.10.8.1-8 i386 Mono runtime un monodoc-gtk2.0 (no description available) root@debian:~# dpkg -l gnote Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold | Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend |/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad) ||/ Name Version Architecture Description +++-==============-============-============-================================= un gnote (no description available) root@debian:~# apt-get -y remove mono-runtime Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following extra packages will be installed: gnote libpcrecpp0 The following packages will be REMOVED: gnome libdbus-glib1.0-cil libdbus1.0-cil libgconf2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.6-cil libgtk2.0-cil libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo4.0-cil libmono-corlib4.0-cil libmono-i18n-west4.0-cil libmono-i18n4.0-cil libmono-posix4.0-cil libmono-security4.0-cil libmono-sharpzip4.84-cil libmono-system-configuration4.0-cil libmono-system-core4.0-cil libmono-system-drawing4.0-cil libmono-system-security4.0-cil libmono-system-xml4.0-cil libmono-system4.0-cil mono-4.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime tomboy The following NEW packages will be installed: gnote libpcrecpp0 0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 26 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 3,421 kB of archives. After this operation, 20.8 MB disk space will be freed. Get:1 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy/main libpcrecpp0 i386 1:8.30-5 [126 kB] Get:2 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy/main gnote i386 0.8.3-1 [3,295 kB] Fetched 3,421 kB in 6s (561 kB/s)

(Reading database ... 143081 files and directories currently installed.) Removing gnome ... Removing tomboy ... Removing libdbus-glib1.0-cil ... Removing libdbus-glib1.0-cil from Mono Removing libdbus1.0-cil ... Removing libdbus1.0-cil from Mono Removing libgconf2.0-cil ... Removing libgconf2.0-cil from Mono Removing libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil ... Removing libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil from Mono Removing libgtk2.0-cil ... Removing libgtk2.0-cil from Mono Removing libgmime2.6-cil ... Removing libgmime2.6-cil from Mono Removing libglib2.0-cil ... Removing libglib2.0-cil from Mono Removing libmono-addins0.2-cil ... Removing libmono-addins0.2-cil from Mono Removing libmono-cairo4.0-cil ... Removing libmono-system-drawing4.0-cil ... Removing libmono-system-core4.0-cil ... Removing libmono-sharpzip4.84-cil ... Removing libmono-posix4.0-cil ... Removing libmono-i18n-west4.0-cil ... Removing libmono-i18n4.0-cil ... Removing libmono-system4.0-cil ... Removing libmono-system-configuration4.0-cil ... Removing libmono-system-security4.0-cil ... Removing libmono-system-xml4.0-cil ... Removing libmono-security4.0-cil ... Removing libmono-corlib4.0-cil ... Removing mono-runtime ... Removing mono-gac ... * Removing packages from mono Removing mono-4.0-gac ... Processing triggers for gconf2 ... Processing triggers for shared-mime-info ... Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ... Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ... Processing triggers for gnome-menus ... Processing triggers for menu ... Processing triggers for man-db ... Selecting previously unselected package libpcrecpp0:i386. (Reading database ... 141636 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking libpcrecpp0:i386 (from .../libpcrecpp0_1%3a8.30-5_i386.deb) ... Selecting previously unselected package gnote. Unpacking gnote (from .../gnote_0.8.3-1_i386.deb) ... Processing triggers for libglib2.0-0:i386 ... Processing triggers for man-db ... Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ... Processing triggers for gnome-menus ... Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ... Setting up libpcrecpp0:i386 (1:8.30-5) ... Setting up gnote (0.8.3-1) ...



"They could have saved all that trouble, space and bandwidth by going with Gnote to begin with," he added. "Even just looking at the volume of dependencies it is superior."

This whole exploration started because as a Debian user myself I just noticed that Mono is included in the desktop by default. Nobody really needs it; this is only taking up a lot of valuable space and raises various types of risk.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 27/03/2026: Studying Whale Births, Apple is Cancelling Products, Cambodia Arrests Journalists Over Photographs
Links for the day
Perpetual Strikes to Begin at European Patent Office (EPO), Large Majority Votes for Strikes Any Day of the Week
Approved industrial actions [...] Notice how none of the media or even so-called 'IP' blogs write about it
 
"Headcount" as Distraction From Mass Layoffs and Salary Reductions
Things aren't looking well when one considers revenue is acquired, not earned
"Linux" Slop Turning Rarer, New York Times Nowadays Contaminated With LLM Slop
Another day has passed without much slop about "linux"
Gemini Links 27/03/2026: GTD, Gopher Catchup, Gemini Crawlers, and "Slop Everywhere"
Links for the day
Mozilla Was Ruined Like Sirius Open Source Was Ruined - From the Top Down
Mozilla will never return to its Free software roots
Nokia Could Never Recover From Microsoft
It's very important to remember what really happened
Why Techrights and Many Other Sites Stopped Doing April Fools’ Day Articles
Well before slop (made by LLMs) it was "bad optics" to have satire or humour in a site, irrespective of the day of the year
President Not-Cocaine Campinos Notified of Historic EPO Strikes (Thousands of Workers Not Coming Back to the Office)
Please do pay attention to how the media treats these strikes in Europe's second-largest institution
Slides From the Presentation Discussing EPO Strikes Until End of June or Until End of 2026 (Maybe Next Year Too)
More to come soon (later today)
IBM Cuts Are Everywhere (Global), the Aim is to Lower the Pay
Because the revenues keep falling (IBM buys other companies' revenues using borrowed money)
Mozilla is Not a Privacy Company, Mozilla is Run by GAFAM Executives and Managers Who Came From American Surveillance Companies
Would you trust a VPN they claim to be "free"?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 25 Out of 200: That Time Matthew J. Garrett Got Temporarily Banned/Suspended From Twitter
That he gets banned from large social control media platform is hardly surprising given his combative communications
Ubuntu Started as Free With ShipIt, Now It Becomes Payware That Exploits Debian Volunteers (Slaves)
"Ubuntu" the distro now replaces the GNU components inherited from Debian with a bunch of Microsoft GitHub (proprietary) things that reject reciprocal licences
Last Night The Register MS Published a Fake Article. It Mentioned "AI" 27 Times.
Paid-for nonsense! [...] What's left of once-respectable news sites actively harms society
Links 27/03/2026: Google Executive (GAFAM, US, Surveillance) "Named the New BBC Head", Prominent Climate Scientist Resigns From NASA
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/03/2026: "Being Busy" and "Posting Again"
Links for the day
GNOME Has No "Real" Executive Director, Only an IBM (Perma)'Interim' One With No Openings in Sight
GNOME is having financial problems
Microsoft Experiencing "Leadership Exodus"
Microsoft's current position is no better than Meta's (Facebook)
GNU/Linux Distros Should Reject "Age Verification" and Uphold Software Freedom for Users
It's not about protecting children
Slop Plunge
we can already "smell the blood" of the so-called 'AI industry'
IBM Media Puff Pieces While Layoffs Go On and On
Has the PR industry absorbed the press?
Media Says Microsoft Hiring Freezes, But There Are Already Microsoft Layoffs
They want the public to talk about Microsoft as if it's just not hiring when it is actually firing
Richard Stallman lynchings: Sruthi Chandran splitting Debian
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 26, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, March 26, 2026
Links 26/03/2026: Tor Relay at National Taiwan Normal University, Copyright Hammers Fall
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/03/2026: "The War of the Worlds" and "sometimes science is just the dumbest thing"
Links for the day
The World Wide Bots
The shape of the Web is so bad that bots exceed humans in some places
Links 26/03/2026: Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Closes 101 Law Firms in 2 Years, "Please Compensate the Work You Appreciate"
Links for the day
Regaining Software Freedom Means Regaining Control Over Programs That Run on Our Devices
Richard Stallman will speak in Italy
Microsoft Secure Boot Removes Users' Choice
Has Greenland banned Microsoft and 'secure' boot yet?
IBM Pushes Workers Out, It Does Not Count Them as "Layoffs"
The number of IBM layoffs can be as large as tens of thousands per year
Hard to Find a Job After Working for Microsoft (Back Doors Giant, Bribery Hub)
It generally looks like people who chose to serve Microsoft's agenda don't end up too well
Microsoft Lost 31% Of Its Alleged "Value" in Five Months, Then It Got Downgraded
In 2026 Microsoft focuses on keeping the layoffs silent
Altering Perceived Reality to Make It Seem Like Microsoft is Thriving, Not Failing
pretend XBox did not die
SLAPP Censorship - Part 24 Out of 200: The Failed Effort by Brett Wilson LLP to Strike Out My Lawsuit and My Wife's Lawsuit Against Garrett (the Master Allowed Our Lawsuits to Proceed)
This is lawfare
Official New Figures Show That Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Sees Rise in Dishonesty Among Law Firms Forcibly Shut Down ('Euthanised' Due to Misconduct)
It's rather if in our little country as many as 16 law firms were found to be so dishonest that they needed to be shut down
Back to Normalcy
In our datacentre at least
IBM is "Increasing Its Temporary and Part-time Headcount" While Net Headcount Falls (Despite Buying Many Companies and Their Workforce)
Headcount is a rather superficial yardstick.
Confluent Insiders: IBM Laid Off Over 800 at Confluent, Not Just 800
For the record, the layoffs at Confluent won't be over. After the bluewashing there will be "IBM RAs" impacting Confluent folks, aside from PIPs
EPO Union Decides to Continue Industrial Actions, Next Strike in Four Days
The latest strike had the highest participation rate
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 25, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Microsoft's "Silent Layoffs" in Slop Clothing
"AI-powered transformation" is just a euphemism for mass layoffs
Where and How to Spot LLM Slop
Many people correctly perceive LLMs as a site's downfall, a step towards the abyss
Public Talk by Richard Stallman in Half a Day "at the Engineering and Architecture Campus of Cesena of the University of Bologna"
He'll probably attract a fairly large crowd
Gemini Links 26/03/2026: Buying a House, Stargazing, OFFLFIRSOCH 2026
Links for the day
Links 25/03/2026: Nations Return to Russian Oil and Burning Wood
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/03/2026: Resisting Authoritarianism and Why Slop Needs to Go Away
Links for the day
Fedora Maintainer-ship Using Slop (Mistakes) Would Make Fedora Less Reliable
It won't produce reliable code or stable systems one can rely upon
IBM's "Legacy Employees" (Experienced Workers, IBM Management Dubs Them 'Dinobabies')
This notion of "legacy employees" seems like something overlapping with "expensive" (well paid) staff, even if not entirely equivalent
EPO's "Current Industrial Actions Are Likely to Intensify Further."
There is another strike in 5 days
This Morning The Register MS Published Slop Promotion With the Term "AI" 15 Times In It. The Register MS Was (As Usual) Paid to Do This
This is not a serious publisher
SLAPP Censorship - Part 23 Out of 200: We Were Right All Along (for 2 Years) About Third Party Funding and Willingness to 'Break the Bank' in Pursuit of "Revenge"
How much damage can a person do to oneself in pursuit of cover-up of legitimate technical concerns?
Gnome Foundation Inc is in Trouble
the agenda is set GAFAM and IBM rather than donors
Links 25/03/2026: Airports Further Militarised, "Slopification and Its Discontents", Microsoft 'Open' 'Hey Hi' Shutting Things Down
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/03/2026: Blogging Fright and Absolutely Useless 'Apps' Made by Slop Machines
Links for the day
Rise in Energy Prices Will Significantly Accelerate the Death of So-called "AI Companies"
It should be noted that fake news about Microsoft OpenAI doubling workforce (mere words, not actions) can serve as a nice distraction from the death of Sora due to divestment
It's Always a Question of Trust
There's a widespread stigma of lawyers being manipulative and chronically dishonest
Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Must More Carefully Investigate or Assess the Financial State of Law Firms in the UK
We'll cover this in depth in the future
GAFAM Mozilla Removes Theora Support, Now GNU Needs to Re-encode Videos
Mozilla used to mean something to Free software advocates
An Open Admission Profits Depend on Addiction
Proprietary software tends to be like this
IBM Americas President Ayman Antoun Comes to OpenText, Weeks Ahead the Mass Layoffs Begin
Is that what IBM will be good at?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 24, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 24, 2026