Re: dpkg modification: non-interactivity
>>>>> "TL" == Torsten Landschoff <t.landschoff@gmx.net> writes:
TL> [1 <text/plain; us-ascii (quoted-printable)>] On Mon, Jan 04,
TL> 1999 at 10:56:41PM +0100, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
>> The {pre,post}{inst,rm} should definitely be non-interactive.
TL> I don't think so. They should not directly query the user but
TL> instead use a layer in between.
Which layer are people working on standardizing at the moment? I
don't think there's too much doubt that pre/postinst scripts will need
to change. The single greatest problem is that everybody is including
their own routines to obtain information.
Are there any suggestions being floated that don't require that
every package that queries the user explicitly be changed in some way?
Standardize an interface (dpkg-option, as someone suggested, or
whatever - *anything* will do, as long as it is extensible), and let
the packages get converted. As maintainers look at the new system, let
them raise issues and then resolve them.
A simple first cut would be to write a dpkg-option that does exactly
what the different maintainer scripts are doing now (ie, read from
stdin). Then write a few different ones to look prettier (eg, a
graphical gtk based one, a pretty ncurses version, etc), stick them in
different directories, and have apt set the path appropriately.
There's a thousand different paths that implementation can (and
probably will) take; I suggest that perhaps we should encourage
package maintainers to raise the real issues that will need to be
addressed, and the easiest way to do that is to float the new
interface, provide a thoroughly basic implementation and see what they
say.
m.
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