Kira a écrit :
在 Tue, 26 Oct 2010 13:22:52 +0800, andre999 <[email protected]>寫道:
I don't quite follow this distinction of programs and packages.
A package is a file with installation instructions for a program, or
a set of closely related programs. Sometimes a program with many
modules is divided into more than one package, but then there are one
or more core packages, essential to the installation of the others.
So maybe some packages would need minimal documentation since they
are dependant on a core package (e.g. OpenOffice).
But if considering installing a package containing a number of
closely related programs, wouldn't one want all the contained
programs to be documented ?
Since they would almost necessarily be complementary ?
And if you install only one program at a time, essentially you are
saying that each package contains exactly one program. So you want
37 packages to install Openoffice ? And you want 4 or 5 packages
instead of one for the diff (file comparison) utilities ?
The difference is clear: For most of the time, you would install
programs,
not packages. Currently in the RPMDRAKE, libraries are listed,
localizations
are listed, which is annoying since if you are not programmer, why
would you
cares about these things? Sure, some would need them for their own
purpose,
but most of the time we would only focus on install certain program, not
related libraries/localizations/....etc. They should go into expert mode/
detail mode, not directly exposed to people. This is a usability
problem, not
about packaging.
It is essential to be able to readily select localisations, for those
needing something other than English.
By the way, if newbies are scared off by packages, why is the
Microsoft environment package oriented ?
(Even though often a package of numerous programs is referred to as a
program.)
I think you miss-understand my thought. That's something like task
package,
which is not what I was talking about. I meant the packages like
libktorrent,
which is installed together with ktorrent as the backbone library.
It's listed
in RPMDRAKE, but in what normal condition would you install it solely?
NO. You install KTorrent, not libktorrent. It should be hidden by
RPMDRAKE,
unless you check the option to show all packages. Most of the time,
you won't
care about what packages installed on your system, you cares about what
"softwares" are installed.
OK, I understand now. You want to show only ordinary program packages,
and not libraries or localisations.
But libraries are in their own section, if you list packages by category.
And localisations are useful packages to show, unless you want to
install them all.
Or you have another way to ensure that only wanted localisations are
installed.
That could be useful.
This reminds me of a suggestion I made a while back for rpmdrake -- that
packages can be grouped multi-level, such that related packages, such as
localisations or modules of a package, be folded to a single line (or
expanded to multiple lines), to greatly reduce the number of lines
displayed.
(e.g. Openoffice or Firefox.)
To accommodate this, Rpmdrake would have to be modified to have multiple
(2 or 3) selection columns. One could select multiple packages with one
click, if folded into one line, or expand the line to select only one or
a few of the packages inside.
A good example would be Openoffice, could now be displayed by default in
only 3 lines : the base package, the various modules (Writer, Calc,
Draw, etc), and the localisations. One could select the base and
modules in 2 clicks, and open the localisations to select the
language(s) desired. Instead of seeing approximately 100 lines.
(I just counted, probably miscounting a bit. In fact it was about 300,
as there were the release and 2 updates for each package.)
Note that many related libraries are divided into a number of modules as
well, so the same principle could apply there.
Anyway, however we do it, there is definitely room for improvement in
Rpmdrake. :)
- André
