On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 12:26:14PM +0100, Reinhard Tartler wrote:
We discussed the option of having conflicts in metapackages several
times. If I remember correctly the main drawback is that users who
really really want to have pulseaudio need to deinstall the metapackage
which is not always what you want.
TBH, I do not think that a conflicts in the meta package is the right
technical solution.
As I said we did not had any request for this and thus it is not
implemented. Perhaps it's just because this is not the right technical
solution. In any case each previous discussion starting with an initial
request of the feature ended up with the conclusion that it is not
needed.
What you want here is to provide the users the best technical
environment to get his work done. I think a much better solution would
be a something like a wizard that examines your system installation,
educates the user about the findings, and then does specific
recommendations (ideally with "fix this" buttons to just do so).
Things that I imagine that this wizard could do would include:
* "The pulseaudio seems to be running. This can cause the following
problems<...> do you want to a) disable pulseaudio in your user
profile, b) remove it from your system c) do nothing
* "Your Gnome System Menu is missing the following entries. Do you
want to add them?"
* "We recommend installing the following applications:<app> <purpose>"
* "You are not running a -rt kernel: do you want to install and reboot?"
* "Your system needs special configuration to reduce the system
latency, do you want me to do the following changes to /etc/...?"
I think you get the idea. That would leave the choice to the user and
still be very functional and easy to use.
BTW, the idea is not really novel. See for example the powertop
application, which makes such suggestions (albeit in text mode) about
power management to save battery time.
I guess that would be an interesting application for a Debian multimedia blend.
+1
Now we "only" need somebody who writes this tool. :-)