Re: comments on dselect
On Tue, 19 Sep 95 22:06 BST, Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk> said:
> Michael E. Deisher writes ("comments on dselect"):
[...]
>> anticipated. It would be better to provide an option to "Select
>> all recommended packages" instead of assuming that the user
>> actually wants this.
> I think that this should be the default, because it is less likely
> to produce bug reports of the form "I can't find `man', how dare you
> produce a system with no `man'".
> I'll arrange for the introductory help screen to appear on entry to
> the package list, and I've changed it to say that packages will be
> selected by default and how to override this.
Personally, I'd rather see the default behavior changed and the intro
screen explain how to get all the recommended packages. There are a
lot of them and some of them (e.g, gcc) are huge. Perhaps we just
need to reevaluate our criteria for a package to be considered
"recommended".
[...]
> This behaviour will be configurable.
Sounds good. Some sort of Novice/Expert mode would be nice.
>> 3. The use of the "q" option to move out of the dependency screen
>> is not at all intuitive. In most programs I use, quit means "quit"
>> (exit the program entirely). Perhaps "u" for "up" or ESC would be
>> more reasonable (I prefer ESC).
> `q' doesn't mean quit, really, it means `confirm'.
In what language? ;-)
>> me. After seeing all the dependency problems, I changed my mind,
>> deselected the package I had intended to install and backed out by
>> pressing "q". Upon installing, I was surprised to see the packages
>> required by the package I deselected being installed. I think a
>> better behavior would be for dselect to return packages to their
>> previous (selected/deselected) state when backing out of the
>> dependency screen.
> `q' means confirm, as above. I've changed this to mean Return now.
> That makes it clearer that when you hit the key (Return, rather than
> `q') that you're accepting everything you see.
So will "q" then mean that the packages will be returned to their
previous state?
[...]
>> 6. Would it be possible to turn off all the unnecessary output
>> (e.g., the gazillion "skipping package xxx" messages) by default
>> during package configuration? I don't care what dpkg is NOT doing!
>> I only want to know what it IS doing.
> No, I'm not going to turn that off - I think it would confuse people
> more. (These messages happen during installation - the unpack phase
> - not during configuration).
I'm afraid I don't understand your objection. Why would not seeing
pages and pages of "skipping package xxx" be confusing? Eliminating
these would actually make it less confusing because it would be harder
to miss meaningful messages about packages that ARE being installed.
In any case, this can probably be resolved after the release.
--Mike
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