Re: Bug#285768: dselect survey
Hi, - If I see a new package installed by someone else, * if nothing depends on it, mark it Unknown; probably manually installed * otherwise, mark it Unknown; probably automatically installed Consider apt-get install foo apt-get remove foo This leaves libfoo1, which was pulled in by foo and is not depended on by anything, hence aptitude will consider it probably manually installed. Most cases where this feature is needed (i.e. unless migrating from another PM) are like this one, where you really want the package removed. Packages in Unknown state that are depended on by other packages could be shown in the preview in a separate section, so you can go on the section line, tap M and then manually go through the list and mark everything that is actually needed. Unknown; probably manually installed: I don't see doing anything especially fancy here, but there should be a way to show all of them on demand. Show all of them in the preview. Unknown; probably automatically installed: If one of these packages is only [transitively] depended upon by some other packages in the same class, tell the user that they all are possibly unused. (for instance, in the preview screen) Such a state would be used only seldom, it applies only to packages installed automatically with another PM where the depending package is removed with aptitude. One problem is that the set of packages that are possibly unused isn't disjoint to the other sets of packages that aptitude displays, which could perhaps lead to some awkward situations. (what if a package is both upgradable and possibly unused? Which category is it listed in, or is it listed in both?) Two categories, like the distinction between automatically installed new packages and new packages. In total, we get four new categories. Simon signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: dselect survey
On Wed, Dec 15, 2004 at 10:20:09AM +0900, Miles Bader wrote: The other problem with aptitude is touted as a design feature: it tends to be all-or-nothing. Either you use it always or you don't (automatic removal thingie). This becomes a problem when multiple persons use different interfaces for adding and removing packages to the system. You exaggerate. I do not. I've seen aptitude remove unwanted packages more than a couple of times because of this. It's a cool feature, yes. It's also a design bug. Marcelo
Re: dselect survey
Op wo, 15-12-2004 te 05:57 -0600, schreef Marcelo E. Magallon: On Wed, Dec 15, 2004 at 10:20:09AM +0900, Miles Bader wrote: The other problem with aptitude is touted as a design feature: it tends to be all-or-nothing. Either you use it always or you don't (automatic removal thingie). This becomes a problem when multiple persons use different interfaces for adding and removing packages to the system. You exaggerate. I do not. I've seen aptitude remove unwanted packages more than a couple of times because of this. It's a cool feature, yes. It's also a design bug. ACK. I very much prefer the way debfoster handles this: if there are new, unknown packages on the system, it will ask, rather than assume, whether a package is wanted or not. And will only do this for packages that are not depended upon; so if you ever remove a package, it will ask about its dependencies again. This is far better than a program which tries to figure it all out itself. -- EARTH smog | bricks AIR -- mud -- FIRE soda water | tequila WATER -- with thanks to fortune
Re: dselect survey
Package: aptitude Severity: wishlist Hi, [aptitude not properly handling packages installed by other tools] ACK. I very much prefer the way debfoster handles this: if there are new, unknown packages on the system, it will ask, rather than assume, whether a package is wanted or not. And will only do this for packages that are not depended upon; so if you ever remove a package, it will ask about its dependencies again. aptitude could be taught to have auto-installed being Yes,No or Unknown. Whenever a package that is in Unknown state could be removed if it were only installed as a dependency, aptitude should list them in the actions to be performed view as being still installed and unknown whether they can be removed. Until I make a decision (which I am not forced to do at this moment) the package would reappear in this list everytime it could be deinstalled (i.e. until another package depending on it is installed or a decision is made). (I'd also like to be able to search for these packages in order to clean up after my fellow sysadmins) Simon
Re: Bug#285768: dselect survey
On Wednesday 15 December 2004 09:01 am, Simon Richter wrote: aptitude could be taught to have auto-installed being Yes,No or Unknown. Whenever a package that is in Unknown state could be removed if it were only installed as a dependency, aptitude should list them in the actions to be performed view as being still installed and unknown whether they can be removed. Until I make a decision (which I am not forced to do at this moment) the package would reappear in this list everytime it could be deinstalled (i.e. until another package depending on it is installed or a decision is made). It seems like Unknown would just be a synonym for No, right? Presumably with a way to search for unknown packages (I think ~U isn't taken yet). Daniel -- /--- Daniel Burrows [EMAIL PROTECTED] --\ | Inconceivable! | | -- The Princess Bride | \ Evil Overlord, Inc: http://www.eviloverlord.com --/ pgpiEiMbkGLus.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Bug#285768: dselect survey
On Wed, Dec 15, 2004 at 01:53:20PM -0500, Daniel Burrows wrote: On Wednesday 15 December 2004 09:01 am, Simon Richter wrote: aptitude could be taught to have auto-installed being Yes,No or Unknown. Whenever a package that is in Unknown state could be removed if it were only installed as a dependency, aptitude should list them in the actions to be performed view as being still installed and unknown whether they can be removed. Until I make a decision (which I am not forced to do at this moment) the package would reappear in this list everytime it could be deinstalled (i.e. until another package depending on it is installed or a decision is made). It seems like Unknown would just be a synonym for No, right? Uh, yes. I think. You may want to explain that a bit more. -- EARTH smog | bricks AIR -- mud -- FIRE soda water | tequila WATER -- with thanks to fortune
Re: Bug#285768: dselect survey
On Wednesday 15 December 2004 03:37 pm, Wouter Verhelst wrote: It seems like Unknown would just be a synonym for No, right? Uh, yes. I think. You may want to explain that a bit more. Well, from the bug report, it looks like the proposal is to maintain the current behavior, but to set a different flag on packages that were conservatively assumed to be manually installed, so they can be switched later to automatic handling if desired. Sounds useful. Daniel -- /--- Daniel Burrows [EMAIL PROTECTED] --\ | Thank you for reading me, but the real .signature is in another email. | \- Does your computer have Super Cow Powers? --- http://www.debian.org -/ pgpzIku2aqCBx.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Bug#285768: dselect survey
On Wed, Dec 15, 2004 at 04:02:03PM -0500, Daniel Burrows wrote: On Wednesday 15 December 2004 03:37 pm, Wouter Verhelst wrote: ? It seems like Unknown would just be a synonym for No, right? Uh, yes. I think. You may want to explain that a bit more. Well, from the bug report, it looks like the proposal is to maintain the current behavior, but to set a different flag on packages that were conservatively assumed to be manually installed, so they can be switched later to automatic handling if desired. Sounds useful. Well, in that case, not entirely. You may also want to set a flag on packages that are assumed to be automatically installed, but of which you have no information. Consider libgnome2-perl: people may want to install that, even if there is no dependency, to allow for debconf to provide a gnome frontend; however, I can imagine there are also packages that have a dependency on libgnome2-perl. Now consider a user who recently switched to aptitude after having used a different frontend for a long while; this user had installed libgnome2-perl manually (for the debconf frontend), but later on installed just one package depending on libgnome2-perl to see what it does. At that time, the switch to aptitude was made; but then the user decided that the package using libgnome2-perl isn't useful enough, and removes it again. What debfoster will do in that case, is present the user with libgnome2-perl (and all packages whom only libgnome2-perl depends on and for which no preference is yet known), and ask whether they should be removed. I really think this is the right thing to do in such a situation. -- EARTH smog | bricks AIR -- mud -- FIRE soda water | tequila WATER -- with thanks to fortune
Re: Bug#285768: dselect survey
On Wednesday 15 December 2004 07:51 pm, Wouter Verhelst wrote: You may also want to set a flag on packages that are assumed to be automatically installed, but of which you have no information. aptitude never should assume that a package is automatically installed, unless it performs the automatic installation itself. I don't think any other option is really safe. (I *think* you're not talking about current behavior, but I thought I saw someone bring this up in the -devel thread that spawned this bug, and you just reminded me of it) Consider libgnome2-perl: people may want to install that, even if there is no dependency, to allow for debconf to provide a gnome frontend; however, I can imagine there are also packages that have a dependency on libgnome2-perl. Now consider a user who recently switched to aptitude after having used a different frontend for a long while; this user had installed libgnome2-perl manually (for the debconf frontend), but later on installed just one package depending on libgnome2-perl to see what it does. At that time, the switch to aptitude was made; but then the user decided that the package using libgnome2-perl isn't useful enough, and removes it again. What debfoster will do in that case, is present the user with libgnome2-perl (and all packages whom only libgnome2-perl depends on and for which no preference is yet known), and ask whether they should be removed. It sounds to me like what you're proposing is something like: - If I see a new package installed by someone else, * if nothing depends on it, mark it Unknown; probably manually installed * otherwise, mark it Unknown; probably automatically installed Then you'd have two more classes of packages, in addition to manual and automatic: Unknown; probably manually installed: I don't see doing anything especially fancy here, but there should be a way to show all of them on demand. Unknown; probably automatically installed: If one of these packages is only [transitively] depended upon by some other packages in the same class, tell the user that they all are possibly unused. (for instance, in the preview screen) One problem is that the set of packages that are possibly unused isn't disjoint to the other sets of packages that aptitude displays, which could perhaps lead to some awkward situations. (what if a package is both upgradable and possibly unused? Which category is it listed in, or is it listed in both?) Daniel -- /--- Daniel Burrows [EMAIL PROTECTED] --\ | Hah, I can just see a real playsmith puttin' a..a DONKEY in a play! | | -- Terry Pratchett, _Lords and Ladies_| \-- (if (not (understand-this)) (go-to http://www.schemers.org)) ---/ pgpzJ1fg1NoVu.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: dselect survey
On Fri, Dec 10, 2004 at 11:52:05AM +0900, Miles Bader wrote: Completely and utterly wrong in my case. I'm exactly the sort of person that you apparently think should like dselect, but I think aptitude is _far_ superior, for both experts and newbies. The competition isn't even close. Except when you face the fact that aptitude uses a very sick kind of MDI. Sick because there's actually no MD, you're editing a single chunk of information using multiple views. It's very hard to figure out what just happened because there's no direct visual feedback. The other problem with aptitude is touted as a design feature: it tends to be all-or-nothing. Either you use it always or you don't (automatic removal thingie). This becomes a problem when multiple persons use different interfaces for adding and removing packages to the system. Marcelo
Re: dselect survey
Marcelo E. Magallon [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The other problem with aptitude is touted as a design feature: it tends to be all-or-nothing. Either you use it always or you don't (automatic removal thingie). This becomes a problem when multiple persons use different interfaces for adding and removing packages to the system. You exaggerate. Support for this feature -- one the coolest things about aptitude -- should clearly be added to other clients too[*], but until that happens, it's not like the system explodes if you also use other clients. The occasional use of other clients causes only slight degradation in the quality of the automatically added annotations, which is hardly something serious. [Of course with aptitude around, you'll almost never want to use apt-get anyway because aptitude implements essentially the same command-line interface.] [*] and you can hardly blame aptitude because other clients are slow on the uptake! If anything this situation is mostly an argument for not using those other clients... -Miles -- [|nurgle|] ddt- demonic? so quake will have an evil kinda setting? one that will make every christian in the world foamm at the mouth? [iddt] nurg, that's the goal
Re: dselect survey
On Fri, Dec 10, 2004 at 10:21:07PM +0100, Bernd Eckenfels wrote: aptitude has a nice usage enter means drill down, this is intuitive. 'q' means quit/leave level backward - this is intuitive I have to say that 'q' doing something other than quitting the program strikes me as being totally unintuitive. g for go, this is intuitive What does go mean? Act on the choices that have been made? Enter seems reasonably equivalent. -- Mason Loring Bliss [EMAIL PROTECTED]Oderint dum metuant! http://blisses.org/ awake ? sleep : random() 2 ? dream : sleep; pgprkqiHPoQUP.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: dselect survey
On 10-Dec-04, 17:02 (CST), Florent Rougon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bernd Eckenfels [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: No, it is because the shortcuts are completely non-intuitive. I use aptitude for the good intuitive keymapping, not for its menu. I see. You find them utterly unintuitive, and are not alone. I don't claim they are really intuitive (for what it means...), non-intuitive == almost, but not quite, completely unlike any other curses-type interface available at the time. Which is not to say it wasn't learnable, and I used it from initial release: It was way better than having to download stuff by hand. But I sure wouldn't recommend it to a new user. Which, of course, isn't to say that it should be removed. I was surprised by how many people still use it; I hope some one will pick it up. Steve -- Steve Greenland The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the world. -- seen on the net
Re: dselect survey
Steve Greenland writes, Which, of course, isn't to say that it should be removed. I was surprised by how many people still use it; I hope some one will pick [dselect] up. Dselect is sufficiently important to me that, as time permits, I mean to pick it up. Another competent person with more time immediately available may pick dselect up first, of course, which would be fine. Otherwise expect dselect action from me within the four months following sarge's release. pgpOBgHkQactc.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: dselect survey
Florent Rougon [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: If you don't like dselect and don't fall in one of the cases I have mentioned, then we have a problem. Ok, I'll be more explicit: I don't like dselect, and I don't fall into any of your cases. dselect is perhaps not as completely awful as some people say it is -- it's at least usable -- but I think it's sufficiently awkward that it's not acceptable as a default package-management interface for debian. -Miles -- A zen-buddhist walked into a pizza shop and said, Make me one with everything.
Re: dselect survey
Florent Rougon [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I've always thought that people who say they hate dselect (or, worse, that dselect is crap) fall into one of the following cases: (a) allergic to text-mode interfaces (b) type or click without thinking (c) haven't used it for more than 5 years (I don't know how dselect was before slink) (d) didn't bother to read the dselect for beginners tutorial or any similar introductory document (e) have had problems with packages that didn't install, upgrade or configure correctly and wrongly blamed dselect for these problems. On Fri, Dec 10, 2004 at 12:13:29PM +0100, Florent Rougon wrote: (f) bash dselect 'cause someone else said it was crap I'll vote for (f) then. I remember very early on in my Debian experience, reading an email signature here that quoted someone as saying dselect has an interface that scares small children. And I must confess the couple of times I've had an installation process start dselect for me, I've ended up Control-Cing out since I couldn't work out how to make it do what I wanted. (I guess this also means (d)) I don't think that's five years ago, but it's probably quite close. ^_^ On the other hand, I don't think I've tried aptitude, or I tried it and had the same problem. apt-get and apt-cache are my friends, and I love them for letting me specify what I want to do in a way that is intuitive to me. Altough I wish I could tab-complete package names sometimes. ^_^ -- --- Paul TBBle Hampson, MCSE 7th year CompSci/Asian Studies student, ANU The Boss, Bubblesworth Pty Ltd (ABN: 51 095 284 361) [EMAIL PROTECTED] No survivors? Then where do the stories come from I wonder? -- Capt. Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean This email is licensed to the recipient for non-commercial use, duplication and distribution. --- signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: dselect survey
On Sun, Dec 12, 2004 at 11:35:22AM +1100, Paul Hampson wrote: apt-get and apt-cache are my friends, and I love them for letting me specify what I want to do in a way that is intuitive to me. Altough I wish I could tab-complete package names sometimes. ^_^ If you're running bash you can source the file /etc/bash_completion This gives you tab completion on a lot of commands. For example: apt-get install kernel-image-TAB apt-get upgTAB also does the right thing for example... This can be setup globally if you uncomment the relevent lines in /etc/bash.bashrc. Steve --
Re: dselect survey
Bernd Eckenfels [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Er, these are shortcuts. *shrug* Uh, so there is a non-shortcut method of operating? I awaited this comment, but didn't know which other word to use. No, I don't claim there is a non-shortcut method. I would say that dselects' control interface consists of only shortcuts (or whatever you want to call that) *by design*. I understand that this may be unpleasant to some people, but I think that for a very often-used program such as dselect (if this is your dpkg front-end of choice, of course), this is not a problem: you don't need 10 months to learn 10 shortcuts in a software that you use every week or so. And you are very efficient with these shortcuts. And which is left with enter, just like you need to do to install (unless you really want to ignore the conflict, which means you have to use Q to install, then :) FWIW, space was used to exit help in woody's dselect version. I cannot say I prefer the new behavior[1], but I don't see a major problem with the two uses of enter you are mentioning: enter in dselect has always[2] meant (in the context of an action) do the work that has been marked so far (usually: install according to the selections I have under the eyes). Consequently, whenever you hit enter, you are supposed to have convinced yourself that you want to do what has been marked so far, which is generally right under your eyes (list of packages to install or remove in a dependency/conflict dialog resolution, for instance). So, in the case of exiting help, you are just somehow led to pay a bit too much attention to a pretty harmless action, that is, exiting the on-line help. I admit this may not be perfect, but I don't see it as a big problem (how often do you need on-line help when you use dselect every week or so?). I think if we could exit help with ESC, that would be perfect, but perhaps tty technicalities would require you to hit it twice as in mc (I don't know much about this problem), which would be a slightly ugly. [1] I still use both versions and happen to often hit space instead of enter when I use sid's one, which doesn't have any bad consequences (simply scrolls help). And the problem will disappear automatically when I don't have to use woody's dselect anymore. [2] Well, since slink at least. -- Florent
Re: dselect survey
Miles Bader [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Completely and utterly wrong in my case. I'm exactly the sort of person that you apparently think should like dselect, but I think aptitude is _far_ superior, for both experts and newbies. The competition isn't even close. Did I mention aptitude in my post? No. I'm just trying to understand people who bash dselect on the first occasion. If you don't like dselect and don't fall in one of the cases I have mentioned, then we have a problem. Simply preferring aptitude is *not* a valid reason to say dselect is ugly, difficult to use, insert typical dselect bashing crap here. PS: maybe I forgot: (f) bash dselect 'cause someone else said it was crap (rest assured, this one is not intended to fit your particular case; I'm just trying to build as complete a list as possible) -- Florent
Re: dselect survey
On Fri, Dec 10, 2004 at 12:03:03PM +0100, Florent Rougon wrote: [1] I still use both versions and happen to often hit space instead of enter when I use sid's one, which doesn't have any bad consequences (simply scrolls help). And the problem will disappear automatically when I don't have to use woody's dselect anymore. echo expert /etc/dpkg/dselect.cfg Regards, David -- * Customer: My palmtop won't turn on. * Tech Support: Did the battery run out, maybe? * Customer: No, it doesn't use batteries. It's Windows powered. -- http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_power.shtml
Re: dselect survey
On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 12:13:29 +0100, Florent Rougon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm just trying to understand people who bash dselect on the first occasion. If you don't like dselect and don't fall in one of the cases I have mentioned, then we have a problem. Simply preferring aptitude is *not* a valid reason to say dselect is ugly, difficult to use, insert typical dselect bashing crap here. Question: does awkward, non-intuitive user interface for a text-based utility constitute a problem? I don't care for dselect primarily because, for whatever reason, the user interface constantly rubs me the wrong way. Although I have read the documentation, I almost always remember it wrongly, hit the wrong keys, etc. etc. After working with it for half an hour or so, I regain my proficiency... but after 6 months of not using it all that minutia is lost to my active memory, and -- once again -- my intuition about how a text-based application SHOULD work fails me. Do I consider this a problem? Not particularly. It is my problem, as much as anyone's. This is a sophisticated sysadmin tool, and I am only an occasional sysadmin, by no means sophisticated. (f) bash dselect 'cause someone else said it was crap However, if you believe that user interface is important, it might behoove you to listen to your users: people don't usually grow to hate a system administration utility simply because it's the hip thing to do. Of course there may be some unreasonable, or even plain-stupid users: but if you believe that user interface is important, you even have to think about how to make *them* happy. An owner, interested in user interface, might take it upon him- or herself to start a thread asking for interface suggestions, in a place where users congregate. Ask questions like: What text-based applications do you consider to be examples of good design? Focus on the distinction between navigation and data-altering events. Consider on-screen cheatsheets that advanced users can disable. Ensure that there are sufficient and obvious undo paths with multiple roll-back points. I am a software developer too -- I know the temptation to mock users who just don't get it when it is perfectly obvious. (I recently rolled out some web software in which a table interface had graphical links: up and down arrows at the top of each column, right below the column label. The number one complaint was: This is useless. There's no way to sort! Are my users dumb as dirt? Apparently they are. Is it their problem? No, it's mine.) Anyway, something to think about. -bluejack -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-
Re: dselect survey
David Schmitt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, Dec 10, 2004 at 12:03:03PM +0100, Florent Rougon wrote: [1] I still use both versions and happen to often hit space instead of enter when I use sid's one, which doesn't have any bad consequences (simply scrolls help). And the problem will disappear automatically when I don't have to use woody's dselect anymore. echo expert /etc/dpkg/dselect.cfg Sure. It is configured this way on all the systems for which I am the only administrator. The minor problem I was talking about only happens on machines which are also administered by people less comfortable with dselect. Thanks for the suggestion, anyway. -- Florent
Re: dselect survey
Blunt Jackson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Do I consider this a problem? Not particularly. It is my problem, as much as anyone's. This is a sophisticated sysadmin tool, and I am only an occasional sysadmin, by no means sophisticated. So, I guess some people simply don't like the *type* of control interface dselect offers, cause they want to see menus and widgets all around instead of having to learn that $keystroke will perform $action. Their main grief towards dselect is therefore formulated as awkward, non-intuitive user interface as you wrote above. Well, I don't think that is so important because I use dselect relatively often and this type of interface allows very efficient operation. Of course, things are a bit different for you since you said that you can spend six months without using it. The situation is IMHO a bit similar to the vi case: I find vi's interface awkward, non-intuitive, just as you qualified dselect's one. But I can understand that some people happen to get used to it, find it efficient and even like it. It's their right, after all. And claiming that vi is a POS just because I don't like its interface is probably not right. important, you even have to think about how to make *them* happy. An owner, interested in user interface, might take it upon him- or herself to start a thread asking for interface suggestions, in a place where users congregate. Ask questions like: What text-based applications do you consider to be examples of good design? Focus on I haven't witnessed any discussion of this type, but I suppose that users would have conflicting views on the subject. Some would want a very easy to understand interface where you just have to follow menus without having to learn any keystroke, while others would prefer an interface where a limited number of keystrokes is enough to get the job done. And, er, I like dselect as it is[1], and am not particularly interested in such a discussion. :-p [1] That doesn't mean I think it's perfect (for instance, I dream of the day where debtags will be fully operational and integrated in dselect). Simply, I wouldn't welcome radical changes in the control interface that would make it less efficient. -- Florent
Re: dselect survey
On Fri, Dec 10, 2004 at 10:03:01PM +0100, Florent Rougon wrote: So, I guess some people simply don't like the *type* of control interface dselect offers, cause they want to see menus and widgets all around instead of having to learn that $keystroke will perform $action. Their main grief towards dselect is therefore formulated as awkward, non-intuitive user interface as you wrote above. No, it is because the shortcuts are completely non-intuitive. I use aptitude for the good intuitive keymapping, not for its menu. Greetings Bernd -- (OO) -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- ( .. ) [EMAIL PROTECTED],linux.de,debian.org} http://www.eckes.org/ o--o 1024D/E383CD7E [EMAIL PROTECTED] v:+497211603874 f:+497211606754 (OO) When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl!
Re: dselect survey
On Fri, Dec 10, 2004 at 12:03:03PM +0100, Florent Rougon wrote: I understand that this may be unpleasant to some people It is not a problem for me that dseclt has no menu, it is a problem that the keys are totally unintuitive, and some screens are really bothering. aptitude has a nice usage enter means drill down, this is intuitive. 'q' means quit/leave level backward - this is intuitive +-_ for selecting, this is intuitive... g for go, this is intuitive Greetings Bernd -- (OO) -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- ( .. ) [EMAIL PROTECTED],linux.de,debian.org} http://www.eckes.org/ o--o 1024D/E383CD7E [EMAIL PROTECTED] v:+497211603874 f:+497211606754 (OO) When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl!
Re: dselect survey
On Thu, Dec 09, 2004 at 10:22:08PM -0500, Daniel Burrows wrote: If you want to find alternatives for a virtual package, you can use 'd' and 'r' to navigate the dependency lists. It's not as convenient as dselect, but it works. Well actually you can enter the package you dont want to have and see the package which requires it. You can enter the package (all with enter) and see the possible providers for a requirement and select one of it with +. This is a style of browsing which is intuitive to me. Gruss Bernd -- (OO) -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- ( .. ) [EMAIL PROTECTED],linux.de,debian.org} http://www.eckes.org/ o--o 1024D/E383CD7E [EMAIL PROTECTED] v:+497211603874 f:+497211606754 (OO) When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl!
Re: dselect survey
* Bernd Eckenfels [EMAIL PROTECTED] [041210 22:18]: Their main grief towards dselect is therefore formulated as awkward, non-intuitive user interface as you wrote above. No, it is because the shortcuts are completely non-intuitive. I use aptitude for the good intuitive keymapping, not for its menu. And I tried aptitude some time, but still use dselect when I want a high-level interface. Dselect always tell me what to do next, aptitude is some wild guessing what the keys might be, never showing those I do need[1], doing strange (=counterintuitive) things and so on... Hochachtungsvoll, Bernhard R. Link [1] for example the key to make it finaly do something -- Sendmail is like emacs: A nice operating system, but missing an editor and a MTA.
Re: dselect survey
Bernd Eckenfels [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: No, it is because the shortcuts are completely non-intuitive. I use aptitude for the good intuitive keymapping, not for its menu. I see. You find them utterly unintuitive, and are not alone. I don't claim they are really intuitive (for what it means...), but *I* don't find them to be a problem at all; and I'm not alone, either. Different people, different tastes... The good thing is, you can have your favorite program and I can have mine, cause noone in Debian will object to a program being packaged for a simple matter of taste, right? ;-) -- Florent
Re: dselect survey
On Friday 10 December 2004 04:23 pm, Bernd Eckenfels wrote: On Thu, Dec 09, 2004 at 10:22:08PM -0500, Daniel Burrows wrote: If you want to find alternatives for a virtual package, you can use 'd' and 'r' to navigate the dependency lists. It's not as convenient as dselect, but it works. Well actually you can enter the package you dont want to have and see the package which requires it. You can enter the package (all with enter) and see the possible providers for a requirement and select one of it with +. That's true, but then you have to scroll past a lot of useless information; d/r (for Depends/Reverse Depends) will get you there quicker. Of course, bearing in mind that recent versions of aptitude (should) show the list of alternatives when you select the unwanted package, what would be really nice would be if you could Tab/mouse into the list and pick the alternative you want directly, the way you can in dselect... Daniel -- /--- Daniel Burrows [EMAIL PROTECTED] --\ |We've got nothing to fear but the stuff that we're| | afraid of! -- Fluble | \ Evil Overlord, Inc: http://www.eviloverlord.com --/ pgpEZhRKFSuHO.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: dselect survey
On Wed, Dec 08, 2004 at 08:30:50PM -0800, Blunt Jackson wrote: Having enter exit the selection process (rather than simply selecting the entry) is perennially surprising, And the need to use upper-Q in conflict resolution to keep the selections one has made manually is also pretty confusing. Greetings Bernd -- (OO) -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- ( .. ) [EMAIL PROTECTED],linux.de,debian.org} http://www.eckes.org/ o--o 1024D/E383CD7E [EMAIL PROTECTED] v:+497211603874 f:+497211606754 (OO) When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl!
Re: dselect survey
Bernd Eckenfels [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Dec 08, 2004 at 08:30:50PM -0800, Blunt Jackson wrote: Having enter exit the selection process (rather than simply selecting the entry) is perennially surprising, And the need to use upper-Q in conflict resolution to keep the selections one has made manually is also pretty confusing. Er, these are shortcuts. *shrug* Uppercase is often used, relatively consistently, for things that you really don't want to do inadvertently. I learnt the most useful shortcuts, I know them, and I don't find them particularly confusing. Very few are needed to do basic package management (I would say, 10 or so). If in doubt, you can always invoke the online help, which is bound to the question mark, so again, I don't see a problem (oh, wait, some industry standard says it should be F1. Well, frankly, I don't care.). For people who are allergic to keyboard shortcuts, I would suggest some point-and-click frontend; that is simply not dselects's target audience, AFAICT. I've always thought that people who say they hate dselect (or, worse, that dselect is crap) fall into one of the following cases: (a) allergic to text-mode interfaces (b) type or click without thinking (c) haven't used it for more than 5 years (I don't know how dselect was before slink) (d) didn't bother to read the dselect for beginners tutorial or any similar introductory document (e) have had problems with packages that didn't install, upgrade or configure correctly and wrongly blamed dselect for these problems. [ Quizz of the day: which cases do you think are the most common? ] Once you understand the basics, I find dselect to be a very useful and efficient program. -- Florent
Re: dselect survey
On Thu, Dec 09, 2004 at 11:08:53PM +0100, Florent Rougon wrote: I've always thought that people who say they hate dselect (or, worse, that dselect is crap) fall into one of the following cases: (a) allergic to text-mode interfaces (b) type or click without thinking (c) haven't used it for more than 5 years (I don't know how dselect was before slink) (d) didn't bother to read the dselect for beginners tutorial or any similar introductory document (e) have had problems with packages that didn't install, upgrade or configure correctly and wrongly blamed dselect for these problems. [ Quizz of the day: which cases do you think are the most common? ] Once you understand the basics, I find dselect to be a very useful and efficient program. Amen! Well said. Regards, David -- * Customer: My palmtop won't turn on. * Tech Support: Did the battery run out, maybe? * Customer: No, it doesn't use batteries. It's Windows powered. -- http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_power.shtml
Re: dselect survey
Miles Bader [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The current aptitude, by contrast, seems both powerful and elegant: it rarely gets in my way, deals well with problem situations, and offers powerful features should I want them (aptitude of years past could also be kinda cranky though). The last time I used aptitude (about six months ago, from Testing), I found it difficult to specify how I wanted dependencies (including recommends and suggests) to be satisfied. I like that fact that when I select a package in dselect which has several ways of satisfying its dependencies, dselect lets me choose what gets installed. Just because a package depends on a web server doesn't mean I want apache installed. While aptitude does tell you what it's going to install, and gives you an opportunity to change it, I couldn't get it to give me a list of acceptable alternatives. I am willing to accept that this might just be down to my own stupidity though. Roger (Sorry if I've broken the thread; I'm reading the web archive.)
Re: dselect survey
On Thu, Dec 09, 2004 at 11:08:53PM +0100, Florent Rougon wrote: And the need to use upper-Q in conflict resolution to keep the selections one has made manually is also pretty confusing. Er, these are shortcuts. *shrug* Uh, so there is a non-shortcut method of operating? management (I would say, 10 or so). If in doubt, you can always invoke the online help, which is bound to the question mark And which is left with enter, just like you need to do to install (unless you really want to ignore the conflict, which means you have to use Q to install, then :) Gruss Bernd -- (OO) -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- ( .. ) [EMAIL PROTECTED],linux.de,debian.org} http://www.eckes.org/ o--o 1024D/E383CD7E [EMAIL PROTECTED] v:+497211603874 f:+497211606754 (OO) When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl!
Re: dselect survey
On Thu, Dec 09, 2004 at 10:27:50PM +, Roger Lynn wrote: The last time I used aptitude (about six months ago, from Testing), I found it difficult to specify how I wanted dependencies You just use g and resolve the dependencies? (Kind of same as in dselect) Greetings Bernd -- (OO) -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- ( .. ) [EMAIL PROTECTED],linux.de,debian.org} http://www.eckes.org/ o--o 1024D/E383CD7E [EMAIL PROTECTED] v:+497211603874 f:+497211606754 (OO) When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl!
Re: dselect survey
Florent Rougon [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I've always thought that people who say they hate dselect (or, worse, that dselect is crap) fall into one of the following cases: (a) allergic to text-mode interfaces (b) type or click without thinking (c) haven't used it for more than 5 years (I don't know how dselect was before slink) (d) didn't bother to read the dselect for beginners tutorial or any similar introductory document (e) have had problems with packages that didn't install, upgrade or configure correctly and wrongly blamed dselect for these problems. Completely and utterly wrong in my case. I'm exactly the sort of person that you apparently think should like dselect, but I think aptitude is _far_ superior, for both experts and newbies. The competition isn't even close. -Miles -- Most attacks seem to take place at night, during a rainstorm, uphill, where four map sheets join. -- Anon. British Officer in WW I
Re: dselect survey
On Thursday 09 December 2004 06:35 pm, Bernd Eckenfels wrote: On Thu, Dec 09, 2004 at 10:27:50PM +, Roger Lynn wrote: The last time I used aptitude (about six months ago, from Testing), I found it difficult to specify how I wanted dependencies You just use g and resolve the dependencies? (Kind of same as in dselect) If you want to find alternatives for a virtual package, you can use 'd' and 'r' to navigate the dependency lists. It's not as convenient as dselect, but it works. Daniel -- /--- Daniel Burrows [EMAIL PROTECTED] --\ | Do you know why the prisoner in the| |tower watches the flight of birds?| | -- Terry Pratchett, _Reaper_Man_ | \-- (if (not (understand-this)) (go-to http://www.schemers.org)) ---/ pgptaUbdTIxuT.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: dselect survey
Miles Bader dijo [Fri, Dec 10, 2004 at 11:52:05AM +0900]: Completely and utterly wrong in my case. I'm exactly the sort of person that you apparently think should like dselect, but I think aptitude is _far_ superior, for both experts and newbies. The competition isn't even close. AOLME TOO!/AOL I liked dselect very much, and would have no problems using it... Only that I found aptitude was standard the first time I installed using d-i, decided to give it a spin, didn't really love it the first time... But by the third use, it really stuck, and now I am an aptitude convert. Far more usable, friendly, navigable user type=normalhas more colors, lets me play minesweeper/user. Greetings, -- Gunnar Wolf - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - (+52-55)1451-2244 / 5554-9450 PGP key 1024D/8BB527AF 2001-10-23 Fingerprint: 0C79 D2D1 2C4E 9CE4 5973 F800 D80E F35A 8BB5 27AF
Re: dselect survey
Gergely Korodi [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: From time to time I give a try to aptitude and synaptic, but always recoil in horror. I don't know what the fuss is about aptitude, IMHO it's way more complicated to use than dselect, and less clear as well. Amazing I used dselect a lot back in the day (I don't know, like up until 2000 or so?). It had a clunky but useable interface (though I fully understand how newbies could get frustrated), and generally worked all right until there was a problem; however when a problem -- even a minor one -- cropped up it, resolving it could be a miserable experience. The current aptitude, by contrast, seems both powerful and elegant: it rarely gets in my way, deals well with problem situations, and offers powerful features should I want them (aptitude of years past could also be kinda cranky though). -Miles -- 80% of success is just showing up. --Woody Allen
Re: dselect survey
On Thu, Dec 09, 2004 at 11:11:31AM +0900, Miles Bader wrote: I used dselect a lot back in the day (I don't know, like up until 2000 or so?). It had a clunky but useable interface (though I fully understand how newbies could get frustrated), and generally worked all right until there was a problem; Maybe I'm still waiting for my first real problem to show up, but I generally find dselect to be a real pleasure to use. Could you present an example of a problem you had with dselect? Honestly, I wouldn't be using Debian today if not for dselect, which I see as being a really nice selling point. -- Mason Loring Bliss [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://blisses.org/ I am a brother of jackals, and a companion of ostriches. (Job 30 : 29) pgpB9eZLWhVyr.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: dselect survey
On Wed, Dec 08, 2004 at 10:23:16PM -0500, Mason Loring Bliss wrote: On Thu, Dec 09, 2004 at 11:11:31AM +0900, Miles Bader wrote: I used dselect a lot back in the day (I don't know, like up until 2000 or so?). It had a clunky but useable interface (though I fully understand how newbies could get frustrated), and generally worked all right until there was a problem; Maybe I'm still waiting for my first real problem to show up, but I generally find dselect to be a real pleasure to use. Could you present an example of a problem you had with dselect? Honestly, I wouldn't be using Debian today if not for dselect, which I see as being a really nice selling point. If you really want to find out, go ask on debian-user. You'll find plenty of people more than willing to piss all over dselect. -- For every sprinkle I find, I shall kill you!
Re: dselect survey
On Wed, 8 Dec 2004 19:32:35 -0800, Brian Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Dec 08, 2004 at 10:23:16PM -0500, Mason Loring Bliss wrote: Maybe I'm still waiting for my first real problem to show up, but I generally find dselect to be a real pleasure to use. Could you present an example of a problem you had with dselect? Honestly, I wouldn't be using Debian today if not for dselect, which I see as being a really nice selling point. If you really want to find out, go ask on debian-user. You'll find plenty of people more than willing to piss all over dselect. Hi, I'm mostly a user, and just lurking on the lists to get a feel for whether I want to become a developer or not, but on this topic I will observe that the dselect interface is very cumbersome and non-intuitive until you get used to it. Having enter exit the selection process (rather than simply selecting the entry) is perennially surprising, and if I ake the tragic mistake of hitting enter twice based on the muscle memory of some other application, I find I may have already taken actions I wasn't quite ready to take. Selecting packages, and their dependencies, can be confusing. In general, for safety and for confidence, I prefer to apt-get exactly the package and its dependencies that I have researched through the web interface. I have done something terrible to one system: which was a stable distribution. For a project, I needed to obtain a package versioned in the unstable distribution. I foolishly thought I could simply change the settings for dselect to grab that one package, but now dselect thinks it needs to change the package version of just about every package on my system, and I am reasonably sure letting it make that change will irreparably damage the system. So, until I deprecate that machine and rebuild it from scratch, I don't use debian tools on it at all any more. I presume there is a better way to grab a single package (and its dependencies) if one needs a different version than is available in stable. I am sure there are other ways to damage a system using dselect, but my main gripes are interface: having to scroll or search through thousands of rather garbagy ackages to find what I want is just useless, the moreso if I don't know the exact package name. The web interface to finding packages is a zillion times better, and apt-get is simple and safe. (If I can apt-get a package versioned outside my overall distribution, that would be perfect.) -bluejack -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-
