"fake" packages
How hard is it to create "fake" packages? What I'm after is this: A
package that will "lie" to the system with a "provides: httpd" line or
"provides: mail-transport-agent" or something similar.
The idea is to be able to install from-source packages, and have Debian
install other packages that depend on that major component - like weblog
analyzers, which will only install if you have a webserver installed. I'd
rather not install a tiny implementation of the subsystem, like dhttpd, and
then disable it, just so I can get the system to think it has a webserver
installed.
I would actually like to see a predefined set of packages like this -- call
them "liar-httpd" or something similar. :)
As long as I'm making wish lists, I had another idea... and I suppose I
could implement this in perl - have a way to rifle through available
packages and list everything that provides a certain function. Very often
I'm wondering what kind of alternatives are available, and sometimes the
only real choice you have for finding them is to just scroll through all
4700 packages in the current potato list.
Thanks,
Shawn
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