On Tue, Aug 16, 2005 at 08:13:03PM +0200, Sandro Dentella wrote: > > I don't have an idea how this could be done. The only alternative I see > > is to tell the people "install A-pre first, then install A which will > > pull in B,C,D"; or to create a script in A-pre that will ask the debconf > > questions and then ask "You must install A,B,C and D for this to have an > > effect. Proceed" and run apt-get install A B C D. > > Thanks, I do realize this is the best solution.
It sounds like a very dirty hack to me, and that can never be the best solution. If it would really be needed, the tools should be changed, and it might be a temporary solution (if it would work, but as was pointed out it probably wouldn't). I may be missing the problem, but as far as I understand it you want B, C, and D to have Depends: A. If they don't have it and cannot be used without A, file a bug report. If they can also be used without A then you must not depend on being configured before them, because users may first install those packages, and add A later. If they should be reconfigured at that time to support the new possibilities which weren't there without A, they should provide a reconfigure option (dpkg-reconfigure comes to mind ;-) ). About your original message: If you want to provide people with a system that doesn't ask questions for which you have good defaults (for their situation), you could create a script which preseeds debconf so it doesn't ask the questions. Your package should definitely not block questions in other packages, as there may be people who don't like your defaults and want to answer those questions. And in general, those are not your package's questions, so you're not supposed to mess with them. I hope this helps, Bas Wijnen -- I encourage people to send encrypted e-mail (see http://www.gnupg.org). If you have problems reading my e-mail, use a better reader. Please send the central message of e-mails as plain text in the message body, not as HTML and definitely not as MS Word. Please do not use the MS Word format for attachments either. For more information, see http://129.125.47.90/e-mail.html
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