[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Since it seems obvious that apt WON'T be finished (GUI bit I mean)
before freeze of slink, I have started writing an X clone of the Dselect
tool.
Although to be ready by 16th will make it pretty much a hack, I think it
is one worthy for this release (in much the same way as the
preselections were earlier).
I have a very simple frontend to dselect in Tcl/Tk which simply replaces the
main menu of dselect... If anyone's interested, I could put it on my web
server, but probably both apt and gdselect are more advanced already.
I will write it using GTK (I already have the basic framework done),
development version 1.1 (for GtkCTrees, they are VERY useful for this).
I have a couple of questions:-
a) Does anyone else think this is a good idea?
Yup. (Otherwise I wouldn't have started my own similar project. g)
b) How will this integrate with the installation
Point b probably needs more expansion. What I mean is, if J Random Luser
installs the basic system using the boot disks, it would be nice to
start X, then this tool ASAP (basically, instead of Dselect). What needs
to be done in terms of bootdisks and installation stuff to support this?
(Presumably at least a question in the install do you want to use a GUI
install program or a TUI install program?).
I really like the idea of a full GUI install, but I have a use for running
Debian on 386s, so it'd be a pretty definite requirement (IMO) that dselect
stick around. (X wouldn't be pretty on a 386. g)
Dselect's functionality is fairly simple - I believe I can have it
duplicated and fully tested (enough for my scrutiny) under X by freeze
time, after which others can test it.
Sounds good to me.
Some more random dselect/dpkg questions for slink:
Also, we need to deal with the dselect Install/Remove/Configure
syndrome. We could easily put in my tool Apply changes, which does all
three (using same script interface). IMHO, we ought to switch completely
to dpkg-mountable and apt (i.e. drop all existing default methods
bar possibly dpkg-ftp and disks).
'apt-get dselect-upgrade' already does that. I'd go for dropping the Configure
and Remove options entirely from (g)dselect.
Also, apt supports mounted filesystems. It would be fairly simple to make it
be able to mount unmounted ones, I would think. (Just check /etc/mtab, and if
it's not there, mount it?) Therefore, I'd propose that this be purely a
frontend to apt.
Apt already has FTP support. Why keep using dpkg-ftp? And what is disks? Does
it handle multi-disk installs?
What about multi-cd stuff? Should be integrated into mountable IMHO.
I think eveything ought to be integrated into apt.
Can mountable handle an FS which isnt in /etc/fstab? If not,
the bootdisks ought to as a bare minimum insert the installation
medium (if CDROM) into /etc/fstab with options
noauto,noexec,nosuid,nodev,ro, and /floppy should be there too.
I don't see how mountable could handle anything not in /etc/fstab. But perhaps
the install routine should have an option for adding entries to /etc/fstab.
(Autodetection of which devices are what and should be mounted where would be
nearly impossible, I would think.)
-Jamey
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