Bug#2188: dpkg-ftp problems

[Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk>]

Bill Mitchell writes ("Bug#2188: dpkg-ftp problems"):
> PACKAGE: dpkg-ftp
...
> 3.  (possibly out of scope) Will it work in the ms-dos tree at all?
>     Probably not, as the packages file doesn't have info on ms-dos
>     tree filename to package name mappings.  (I use a 150 MB transfer
>     disk to move packages to non-networked systems.  On some systems,
>     I need to run the disk thru a parallel port adapter and, the parallel
>     port adapter not being supported under Linux, that means that I must
>     use an MS-DOS filesystem on the transfer disk).

You're doing something very weird here.  I don't think the dselect FTP
method needs to support installation from anything other than a copy
of the Debian FTP site.

> 4.  (probably out of scope)  What I'd find very useful is to be presented
>     with a list of packages which are update candidates, and to be able to
>     select from those files and download selected ones for later installation
>     via another method direct dpkg install or dselect hard disk).  This could
>     be built into the ftp-dpkg processing which gets done from dselect's
>     [A]ccess choice.  Useful or not, though, whether this is in scope
>     for dpkg-ftp is more easily arguable con than pro.

This feature should be implemented in dselect, where it can be used by
all its methods.  It is in my plans for the `user-friendly'
installation interface, and a way to do much the same in the export
mode user interface we have at the moment is on my wishlist.

Ian.