Re: What do you wish for in an package manager?
>>>>> "Bam" == Brian May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >>>>> "Dwayne" == Dwayne C Litzenberger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Dwayne> So my question is: What do you wish for in a package Dwayne> manager? Run fast, and do not do things like update-something twice when upgrading several packages at once. Bam> 1. Built in support for shared NFS systems. Bam> See http://snoopy.apana.org.au/~bam/debian/nfs-dpkg/> Bam> for some examples. I believe that most of the issues raised here can be solved with higher abstraction. Currently, installation scripts assume too much about the system. The /usr/doc - /usr/share/doc transition problems are one consequence of this. If files were tagged according to some high level criterions, it would be easier to put change the physical location during installation. Setting the path in the package is bad idea from that point of view. I think that installation scripts should be rather declaratives : in fact they should not be scripts. It would avoid security problems because of badly written scripts, and allow easier extensibility by simply interpreting the declarations in a different way, rather than having to rewrite all the scripts of all packages. In short, the current system totally sucks :-) It's cool that it exists, and it does many things, but it has its limits that can't be pushed very far without a complete rethinking of it. (I'm not a subscriber of the list, so if you want me to read your replies, Cc to me) -- Laurent Martelli [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://www.linuxfan.com/~laurent
Re: Metapackages (was Re: Debian Weekly News - September 14th, 1999)
>>>>> "Martin" == Martin Bialasinski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Martin> * "Laurent" == Laurent Martelli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Martin> wrote: Martin> * "Stephane" == Stephane Bortzmeyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Martin> wrote: Laurent> It would also be nice to be able to select the packages one Laurent> by one, thus providing a new way to hierarchise packages Laurent> without messing with the old directory structure of the Laurent> distributions. Is this planned ? Martin> This is not subject to the task packages. I fully agree. I think that classification should be kept out of packages, so that it can be changed without changing all the packages. Martin> For better organisation, there were several proposals, but Martin> they were not persueded further although there wasn't much Martin> resistance - there wasn't simply anyone who wanted to push Martin> it through the decision layers). See above. Martin> Take a DN Server. A user could search on "DNS", "DNS Martin> server", "DNS-Server", "bind", "name server" etc. This is Martin> the same effect as with search engines, where you never get Martin> the hit you really searched for. I introduced some kind of "personnal indexing engine" for w3-emacs which allows you to associate keywords to bookmarked pages. When you want to search for a keyword, there's completion on it so that you can quickly find the right one. The same goes when you want to associate a new keyword to a page, so your likely to choose an already existant keyword if you can find one that satisfies your need. Having synonims could also be a solution. -- Laurent Martelli [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Metapackages (was Re: Debian Weekly News - September 14th, 1999)
>>>>> "SB" == Stephane Bortzmeyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: SB> On Thursday 16 September 1999, at 2 h 3, the keyboard of Laurent SB> Martelli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> very nice, but how will uninstallation be handled ? Will you be >> able to uninstall all the packages of a metapackage in one step ? SB> Certainly not: SB> - a package can be a member of several meta-packages, We could state that the default is not to remove a package as long as it belongs to a metapackage. SB> - a package could have been installed before (and independently SB> of) a metapackage which includes it). That could be tracked during the installation of the metapackage. It would know what packages were already installed before. Then when you want to remove the metapackage, you could say "only remove packages that were installed by the metapackage" or "remove all packages, regardless of when they were installed". -- Laurent Martelli [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Metapackages (was Re: Debian Weekly News - September 14th, 1999)
>>>>> "JH" == Joey Hess <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: JH> * The long awaited redesign of the installation profiles has JH> begun. Now there are "metapackages"; packages that depend on a JH> group of packages that relate to a common activity, like playing JH> games or developing C programs. Martin Bialasinski posted a JH> [14]request for help coming up with lists of packages for each JH> metapackage. Being able to select several packages by selecting a metapackage is very nice, but how will uninstallation be handled ? Will you be able to uninstall all the packages of a metapackage in one step ? It would also be nice to be able to select the packages one by one, thus providing a new way to hierarchise packages without messing with the old directory structure of the distributions. Is this planned ? -- Laurent Martelli [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian goes big business?
> "ChL" == Christian Lavoie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: ChL> Bottom line: Debian should remain developer controlled. What about non-developper users ? Shouldn't they have a word to say, even if they can't or do not have the time to contribute with code ? Laurent
