Re: Getting rid of section "base" ?
Goswin Brederlow writes:
> I wuld suggest to use a syntax like this in the Packages file:
> Interface: tty (stdio, dialog), X11 (Xt, Qt)
Is there a compelling reasoon to make this hierarchical? Why not just
have a plain old list such as:
text, console, xlib, xaw, motif, gtk, qt, web.
For example, I think it would seem that we don't need both "tty" and
"tty/stdio". As you can see, i've gotten rid of some of the finer
graining as far as choices go. This is because we already have
dependency information, so you can use that to figure out if you need
GNOME for a given GTK+ package, or what console libraries are depended
on (ncurses, slang, dialog, newt, whiptail, etc.)
I see the categories as mainly being useful for the user sifting
through long lists of packages. Wouldn't want to force them to be too
specific, IMHO. What are the downfalls to this, though? Go ahead and
shoot me down, I'm just trying to brainstorm ;-)
> I also think that the interface should not show up on the layout of
> the debian file structure (ftp/cdrom). People looking for a package to
> do something don?t so much care for the interface as long as it does
> the job. For other cases where the interface matters the Interface
> value from the Packages file can be used in a frontend.
Yeah... In most cases I would see myself querying based on section and
keywords, and filtering out things based on category ("nature") and
interface. Perhaps we should keep that in mind; searching for packages
is getting to be a bit of a pain.
> Maybe program should be split up further into stuff like games and
> such. Also where do windowmanagers go? I would like sections for
> games, graphics, utils, interfaces.
I'd disagree with splitting up the program section; it [being a
"game"] doesn't seem like much of a distinction. A window manager
would be in 'programs', and a section of...? Not sure. Perhaps keep an
'x11' section for this, Xfree86, XDM, and so on?
> In my eyes this would be most usefull as the layout for the ftp/cdrom
> archive.
Me too; you could also have the various sections as a second-level
division.
> > 2. UserInterface: A list of ways the programs in the package interact
> > with their users. Possible values are to be defined by policy,
> > examples are given at the top of this mail.
Now, this is *only* with packages marked as a "Program", right? Maybe
it should be clarified.
> > 3. Section: [As the current packaging manual says] the Section
> > represents an application area into which the package has been
> > classified.
Good, but perhaps we should all go over the categories and see if any
improvments to the list can be made... definetely some work needed
there, I think.
--
Decklin
Written with Debian GNU/Linux - http://www.debian.org/
Reply to: