Re: virtual packages
On Sun, 25 May 1997, Igor Grobman wrote:
> On May 25, Craig Sanders wrote
> >
> > On Sun, 25 May 1997, Christian Schwarz wrote:
> >
> > > I fully agree to what Manoj said. Since the dotfile generator will
> > > probably get widely used by other packages we should put this package on
> > > our list of "public virtual packages".
> > >
> > > Since I maintain this list, I suggest the following addition to section
> > > "Miscellaneous":
> > >
> > > dotfile-module Anything that provides a module for the dotfile
> > > generator
> > >
> > > Does someone have objections?
> >
> > No objections, just a query:
> >
> > what will this actually achieve?
> > Will dselect automatically select new packages providing dotfile-module
> > when they appear?
> >
> > As far as I know, it won't - at least not if dotfile only Suggests
> > dotfile-module.....and even if it does do it for Recommends, the
> > behaviour of Recommends is obnoxious enough that it should NOT be used
> > in this situation.
>
> Whether it depends, recommends or suggests dotfile-module, dselect would still
> be satisfied when just one module is selected, so when new modules appear they
> won't be selected automatically. This is much easier to do than make a depends
> line look like this:
> Depends: dotfile-bash | dotfile-fvwm2 | dotfile-tcsh etc.
> I think dotfile should depend on dotfile-module, since it's practically useless
> without it. I could be convinced to only recommend it, but as Craig pointed
> out, dselect does not treat Recommends any differently than it does Depends.
I was thinking about "Suggests: dotfile-module". This has a few
advantages:
- The first time some selects "dotfile-gen" (or whatever it's called)
dselect automatically suggests to include a module. So if one don't know
this package, one get the hint to include a module.
- If new module packages appear, the user probably already knows about the
dotfile generator, so he/she doesn't need such a hint. (The package is
listed under "new available packages"--this should be enough.)
- Perhaps some sysadmins have created their own dotfile modules for local
use only, so they probably don't want to install any of your module
packages. If dotfile-gen would depend or recommend them, he/she would have
to install one of the module packages just to get dselect shutting up.
So what's the problem of dotfile-gen suggesting dotfile-module?
Thanks,
Chris
-- Christian Schwarz
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schwarz@debian.org, schwarz@mathematik.tu-muenchen.de
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