Hello,
I'm working on a toolkit to define and handle Custom Debian Distributions.
My idea is to define a CDD using a description file that declares a set of
tasks that depend on other tasks and on *real* debian packages. This file is
parsed by a Python script that generates the input files of shell scripts
that take care of installing, upgrading and removing those tasks. The shell
scripts are there to avoid the need for python on the installed system (i.e.
for small custom systems) and for the debian-installer.
The problem I've found is that I don't want to generate metapackages for the
tasks (they have caused problems in the past on the Debian archive and I feel
that there is no need for them anyway, as they are usually used only to
install sets of packages and are not needed after that), I simply want to be
able to satisfy the dependencies, but apt-get does not let me to do it
without metapackages.
My idea is to have a command to do something like:
# apt-get install-deps nvi (>> 1.78) | vim, ed
And probably support also a way to add conflicts:
# apt-get install-deps nvi (>> 1.78) | vim --conflicts emacs21 (<< 21.3)
Would the apt developers accept a patch to implement that functionality with
that or a different syntax? I have not digged into the apt code, but I
suppose it has to be easily implemented as it is simply a matter of parsing
command-line and using existing code, but I don't want to start without
knowing the developers opinion about it.
Please add me on Cc: as I'm not currently subscribed to the list.
Greetings,
Sergio.
--
Sergio Talens-Oliag <sto@debian.org> <http://people.debian.org/~sto/>
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