On Wed, Mar 09, 2016 at 05:36:56PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote: > Julian Andres Klode writes ("Re: [RFC/dpkg PATCH] Introducing an > relaxed-Essential-like "Important" field"): > > Are there any better proposals? > > Do we want this field to be ignored by old versions of the tools, or > to prevent installation of the package ? I think the answer is (a) in > which case we probalby need a new field. > > If the answer were (b) we could use `Essential: sort-of' or something.
Definitely (a). Most software does not need to know about the field. What options are there: 1. Important synonyms: Significant: yes Crucial: yes Vital: yes 2. Removal-related: Removable: no (or Removable: force) Do-Not-Remove: yes Discourages-Removal: yes 3. others Keep: yes > > I agree with the qualms about `important'. > > Also we need to consider how to allow the user to switch between > different programs which have this flag set. There needs to be a > user-friendly flag on apt, I think. (Maybe there already is.) I'd believe that a Replaces/Breaks or Replaces/Conflicts from one package to another providing the same feature set would be the way to go. > > Perhaps the control field name should follow the UI decision. I don't really know. Maybe "Removal of this package is discouraged", thus something like: Discourages-Removal: yes I think that's clear to anyone. But maybe it's too clear as it basically restricts it to removal only. Other things APT does with the field: 1. APT assigns "Important" packages a higher score than other packages in the solver (the solver treats Important as Essential) 2. APT treats Important packages like Essential when Breaking a loop with an early removal to prevent a temporary removal of it You could say that both actually contribute to the goal of preventing the removal, but (1) probably seems like a semantic not fit for a field named like that. Basically, we just dropped the immediate configuration part APT does for essentials (apt-pkg/packagemanager.cc), the automatically installing of new essential packages (apt-pkg/upgrade.cc), and they do not get an extra score in the ordering algorithm (apt-pkg/orderlist.cc). -- Debian Developer - deb.li/jak | jak-linux.org - free software dev When replying, only quote what is necessary, and write each reply directly below the part(s) it pertains to (`inline'). Thank you.