Installing Gnome-Do the Minimal Way

For those of you who like to keep their installations lean and swift, installing software can be a problem at times. There's lots of useful software out there, but some can be really bloated and slow, while others are small themselves, but have large or many dependencies.

This is especially true for Gnome-Do. When you install Gnome-Do, Evolution get installed along as a dependency. If you are using Ubuntu (or GNOME), where Evolution is already pre-installed, this is not an issue. However, if you are using other distro, like Linux Mint, or other desktop managers, then you won't want to install the bulky Evolution just to use Gnome-Do.

Luckily, there is a solution for this. The trick is to install an empty Evolution package and make Gnome-Do think that Evolution is already installed on your computer.

Note: Please keep in mind that if you already have Gnome-do and/or Evolution installed, there's no need to follow this set of instructions. Also, by using this dependency you will break anything that relies on the real dependency. There is nothing to worry about if you're not using Evolution in the first place though.

Download the .deb file that will serve as the substitute and place it on your desktop.

Double click on the deb file to install.

If for some reason that double-clicking of the deb file doesn't work, open a terminal and type the following:

cd /~Desktop
sudo dpkg -i libevolution5.0-cil_2.2.2-2_i386.deb

After that, just follow the instructions here to install Gnome-do normally.

Don't forget to change the lines you need to paste into /etc/apt/sources.list if you're using Ubuntu 9.10.

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/do-core/ppa/ubuntu karmic main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/do-core/ppa/ubuntu karmic main

Or if you're using Ubuntu 9.04:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/do-core/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/do-core/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

As you can see, you can save quite some space by using a substitute dependency.

Installation of Gnome-Do with full Evolution package:

Installation of Gnome-Do with substitute Evolution package:

Credit for the substitute dependency: Juan Frias

Damien Oh

Damien Oh started writing tech articles since 2007 and has over 10 years of experience in the tech industry. He is proficient in Windows, Linux, Mac, Android and iOS, and worked as a part time WordPress Developer. He is currently the owner and Editor-in-Chief of Make Tech Easier.