Re: Simple questions
On 05 Apr 2001 18:37:45 -0500
John Hasler <john@dhh.gt.org> wrote:
> Steve Langasek writes:
> > Hmm. Well, you could write a package, un-task-kde, that conflicts with
> > everything task-kde depends on...
>
> That might prove inconvenient when the user tried to reinstall task-kde.
>
> However, a method of removing tasks that actually removed the packages
> pulled in by the tasks would be useful. How about a task-xxx-uninstaller
> executable that would be pulled in by task-xxx and, when executed, would
> remove task-xxx and everything it had pulled in? It would, of course, have
> to dodge around packages depended on by things outside task-xxx, and it
> would be helpful if 'dpkg -r task-xxx' could tell the user about
> task-xxx-uninstaller.
Why can't we just have a script (or option to dpkg?) that removes/purges not
only a named package, but all packages it Depends/Recommends/Suggests,
provided these packages are not Depended/Recommended/Suggested by some other
package(s). That would be _so_ much cleaner than creating _more_ metapackages.
Metapackages are nice, but if you go overboard with them, they can become a
big problem...
On the subject of metapackages, shouldn't there be a special flag in the control
info for a metapackage (eg, "Metapackage: Yes") which causes apt et al to not
download and install it, but simply mark it as being installed? I see no real
reason to install a metapackage.
Regards,
Alex.
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