apt installing more packages than specified as dependencies

Question

I was trying to install texmaker from the repository. For installing the texlive I followed the steps described here. For this the control file I used is this. It has the file texlive-binaries in it.

Then I tried to install texmaker from apt. It has the dependency listed as

# apt-cache depends texmaker
texmaker
  Depends: libc6
  Depends: libgcc1
  Depends: libpoppler-qt4-3
  Depends: libqt4-network
  Depends: libqt4-xml
  Depends: libqtcore4
  Depends: libqtgui4
  Depends: libqtwebkit4
  Depends: libstdc++6
  Depends: zlib1g
  Depends: texmaker-data
  Recommends: aspell
  Recommends: ghostscript
  Recommends: netpbm
  Recommends: psutils
    texlive-local
  Recommends: texlive-latex-extra
    texlive-local
 |Recommends: <hunspell-dictionary>
    myspell-fr
    myspell-ru
    hunspell-an
    hunspell-ar
    hunspell-be
    hunspell-da
    hunspell-de-at
    hunspell-de-at-frami
    hunspell-de-ch
    hunspell-de-ch-frami
    hunspell-de-de
    hunspell-de-de-frami
    hunspell-en-ca
    hunspell-en-us
    hunspell-eu-es
    hunspell-fr
    hunspell-gl-es
    hunspell-hu
    hunspell-kk
    hunspell-ko
    hunspell-ne
    hunspell-ro
    hunspell-ru
    hunspell-se
    hunspell-sh
    hunspell-sr
    hunspell-sv-se
    hunspell-uz
    hunspell-vi
    myspell-et
    myspell-lv
    myspell-pl
 |Recommends: <openoffice.org-spellcheck-de-de>
    hunspell-de-de
    myspell-de-de
 |Recommends: <myspell-dictionary>
    myspell-de-de-oldspell
    myspell-fr
    myspell-ru
    hunspell-kk
    myspell-af
    myspell-bg
    myspell-ca
    myspell-cs
    myspell-da
    myspell-de-at
    myspell-de-ch
    myspell-de-de
    myspell-en-au
    myspell-en-gb
    myspell-en-us
    myspell-en-za
    myspell-eo
    myspell-es
    myspell-et
    myspell-fa
    myspell-fi
    myspell-fo
    myspell-fr-gut
    myspell-ga
    myspell-gd
    myspell-gv
    myspell-he
    myspell-hr
    myspell-hu
    myspell-hy
    myspell-it
    myspell-ku
    myspell-lt
    myspell-lv
    myspell-nb
    myspell-nl
    myspell-nn
    myspell-pl
    myspell-pt-br
    myspell-pt-pt
    myspell-sk
    myspell-sl
    myspell-sw
    myspell-th
    myspell-tl
    myspell-uk
  Recommends: hunspell-en-us
  Recommends: asymptote
  Recommends: ibus-qt4

But when I tried to install texmaker from apt is shows

# apt-get install texmaker
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  asymptote asymptote-doc ed freeglut3 ibus-qt4 libgraphite3 libibus-qt1
  libptexenc1 libqtwebkit4 libruby1.9.1 libsigsegv2 libyaml-0-2
  python-imaging-tk ruby ruby1.9.1 tex-common texlive-binaries texlive-common
  texmaker-data

Why is it so?

I had no problem installing tex-studio and texworks.

Answer 1

As Mikel said, apt-get is pulling in the recommends by default. Also, bear in mind that the dependencies have dependencies too, so sometimes you can get extra packages that way.

While recommends are not absolutely necessary, some of the time packagers include as recommends packages that are normally necessary for the correct functioning of the software. The reason that some packages (that are normally necessary for correct functioning) are recommended rather than required is that some users may have special needs which do not require these packages, so this is done so that people with space constraints can keep their systems a little slimmer. It is a flexibility consideration. Debian policy can't be completely precise about this, obviously, so it is a bit of a gray area. Personally, I let apt-get install the recommends, and if disk space isn't an issue, that is usually simpler and probably better. But your mileage may vary.

Here is the word from the Debian Policy Manual on the Recommends relationship.

Recommends

This declares a strong, but not absolute, dependency.

The Recommends field should list packages that would be found together with one in all but unusual installations.