Am Dienstag, den 08.06.2010, 20:17 +0200 schrieb Stefan Haller: > On Monday 07 June 2010 17:28:19 Daniel Leidert wrote: > > I would expect a simple third solution: > > > > desktopnova depends on the modules with equal version > > the modules don't depend on desktopnova at all > > > > Why do they depend on desktopnova atm? They don't contain anything that can > > be run by a user and requires desktopnova. Do they? Just imagine a > > library. It won't do anything useful without any application using it. But > > we don't let the library depend on applications using it. Let the modules > > packages suggest desktopnova if you want. But having them installed does > > not raise any technical reason, why desktopnova must be present at the > > system. > > > > The version requirement can be easily fulfilled via the desktopnova control > > fileds. > > Thank you for your reply. > > This solution is also possible. The problem is that the users can't choose > the > desktop environment. Let's say a user has a Xfce system and he installs > desktopnova. APT now has the choice to install either > desktopnova-module-gnome > or desktopnova-module-xfce. But the user has no impact on the process -- APT > might choose desktopnova-module-gnome which is the wrong one from the user's > point of view.
Two hints: a) The usual way is, that such a desktop-dependent package will depend and pull in the required environment (compare it to e.g. a frontend of a program for GTK vs QT - we have several examples in the repository). So the user will see, what's going on. b) Let both modules packages provide desktopnova-module and conflict with each other. Then let desktopnova depend on desktopnova-module. So the user will have to choose the module package to install. IMO this is a common solution. c) Create "dummy" packages (like e.g. gnome-media, gnome-core, ...) and let them depend on the right module package: e.g. create desktopnova-xfce and let it depend on desktopnova and desktopnova-module-xfce. > The users have to install the modules first and then the main package. I can't see a technical reason for this statement. [..] > I hope I missed nothing, but I don't see a way to express the dependencies in > the control file easily. Well, your situation isn't uncommon. We have several examples in the repository and I described several common solutions above. IMO you can check against the list of e.g. `dpkg -l "*-gnome"'. Regards, Daniel -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-mentors-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1276114975.6349.9.ca...@haktar.wgdd.de