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While I was using GIMP, XSane and ImageMagick were automatically installed in my PC? GIMP has probably done it. How did GIMP installed them? GIMP did not even asked my permission. Similarly, few months ago some software were installing other software themselves in my PC. Why is this happening?

Now should I delete them? I want to delete them, but they may install themselves again. How to stop them from installing in my PC?

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    "How did GIMP installed them?" - It was most likely included in the install script for GIMP. If you don't want those applications to be installed just uninstall them. As for preventing unwanted applications from being installed, carefully read the prompts, while installing software. Honestly, what you describe isn't that uncommon, happens all the time on Windows. – Ramhound Jan 12 '21 at 14:45

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In most of the Linux world, software is organized in packages, which can form a dependency chain. This is a good thing: Let's consider an example

  • You want to install a game
  • Unbeknown to you, this game is built using the widely-used SDL toolkit

If the system were to naivly install the game but not the SDL runtime, the game would install fine, but it would not run. But since the package containing the game declares a dependency on the package containing the needed SDL components, an installation of the game will automatically also install these SDL components, making the game run fine.

In your case, Gimp allows for scanning of images directly from the application, and it allows for application of effects, that are rendered by ImageMagick. So the Gimp package declares, that in order to become fully functional, it needs these two packages to be installed as well. The package manager will resolve these dependencies and do what is needed.

Eugen Rieck
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Programs don't install themselves automatically. They also can't be installed by (most) other programs, because most programs don't have sufficient privileges. Installing software in Linux (generally) requires root privileges and software like GIMP doesn't have these.

These were probably installed while you were installing some other software, either as a dependency or recommendation. I can't provide specific instructions for checking why they got installed because I don't know what Linux distribution you're using.

gronostaj
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