Re: Install

[Steve Greenland <steveg@moregruel.net>]

On 13-Jun-02, 15:32 (CDT), "John T. Whelan" <whelan@phys.utb.edu> wrote: 
> On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, Steve Greenland wrote:
> 
> > Donovan, you may the first Debian new-comer to praise dselect. Ever.
> > Yes, it has the needed functionality, but its UI is, to put it kindly,
> > baroque.
> 
> Really?  I think it's one of the most useful things about Debian,

Oh, so do I, and didn't mean to imply otherwise. I've used dselect
from the day it was introduced (well, week, perhaps), and even the
first version was substantially better than anything Redhat has ever
had (speaking as someone who has been fighting Redhat installs and
maintenance for the last several months - and please don't push the
disaster that is rpmfind).

What I was saying is that from what shows up on the mailing lists,
and comments from people I've introduced to Debian, is that dselects
user interface is, as someone else in this thread wrote, "clunky".
In particular, it's use of <Return> as a significant action key is a
annoying, and even I, a multi-year user, was often heard to mutter
"Stop! That's not what I meant!". Additionally, it's handling of
Recommends has been a problem for years.

I think aptitude in its present state is significantly more useful than
dpkg in its, and while Daniel says there's things dselect can do that
aptitude can't, I apparently don't use them, and don't miss them (I
suspect it's in the area of handling certain types of package sources,
rather than UI issues.)

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


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