on Sun, Nov 19, 2000 at 06:49:15PM -0800, Joey Hess (joeyh@debian.org) wrote: > Chris Palmer wrote: > > ok, so I've heard now from a couple folks that I should avoid > > dselect. It's pretty much been the only way that I'd ever done > > any package maintenance on my system (I guess I'm behind the > > times). It's also the only way I've know about availability of > > packages, and it was cool that I could just flag them. > > > > Should I now abandon the settings in dselect and no longer run > > it? I had attempted to flag things that I wanted to add to my > > system in there (and I have no idea what they were now). > > There's absolutely nothing wrong with using dselect. Just learn to use > the "R" and "Q" keys if a dependancy conflict causes dselect to want to > remove packages that you need, and file bugs in these cases so we can > know about them. > > Dselect is a very useful tool, just because a lot of current debian > users have not invested the time to feel comfortable with it does not > mean you should follow their bad advice. Granted, and Joey's probably one to know a thing or two about dselect. I actually am fairly used to it, and am known to use dselect on occasion even now. Having experience with and and understanding of package dependencies, I actually find the R & Q keys and their actions reasonably intuitive. This was hard-come-by intuition, however. However, I would tend to recommend more recent tools, and my understanding is that dselect is in the process of being phased out. I've also squidged up my own package lists pretty badly with dselect, this seems to be a more common occurance with dselect than other tools. A long, long time ago I responded to a Usenet post asking whether or not GNU/Linux had any features to prevent users from making an absolute hash of things. My response then still stands: bitter experience. Which is to say, you've got plenty of rope. Build a bridge or a noose, it's your choice. -- Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://www.netcom.com/~kmself Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc. http://www.zelerate.org What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org
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