Re: dselect user interface

[Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au>]

On Wed, 23 Oct 1996, Chris Fearnley wrote:

> My first cut at a "novice" interface would involve the following:
>   Under the '2. [S]elect      Request which packages you want on your system.'
>   menu option these choices would be offered:
>     1.  Basic Install (Only "standard" packages)
>     2.  Workstation-Server (Include "optional" packages -- smail based)
>     3.  Workstation-Server (Include "optional" packages -- sendmail based)
>     4.  Full Install  (Virtually every package that won't result in conflicts)
>     5.  Advanced Package Selection (the current dselect interface)

sounds great.

a suggestion:

instead of hard-coding the first 4 options, make it scan a list (in, e.g.,
/var/lib/dpkg/install_sets/index.txt) and generate the menu on the fly.

index.txt:
    basic      Basic Installation (Only "standard packages")
    text       Text-only Workstation
    X          X Workstation
    text-dev   Text-only development system
    X-dev      X based development system
    www        Web server, cgi, perl, etc
    proxy      Squid proxy server
    sendmail   Mail server (sendmail based)
    smail      Mail server (smail based)
    full       Full Install  (every package that won't result in conflicts)
    .
    .
    .
    etc etc etc


"workstation" sets contain run time libs and common interpreters
(e.g. perl). "dev" sets contain run time, interpreters, compilers,
libraries, and anything else which might be needed for software
development/compiling source. "server" sets contain all tools to perform
the described function, and little else (bare minimum for functioning
system). Any extra stuff can be selected using the normal dselect
interface.


the installation set files could contain something like:

basic.set:
    Package: basic_install
    Version: ???
    Depends: package1, package2, package3, ..., packageN


yeah, i know that virtual packages already do this, but this is a way of
integrating special case virtual packages ("install sets") into dselect's
user interface.


Once someone selects one of the install sets above, they should be given
a choice of either:

    1. install selected packages
    2. select another set (merge selections and resolve conflicts)
           (this would be nice but not essential. e.g. merge www
            server and proxy server)
    3. customise selections (the current dselect interface)


also, i'm not sure how to handle the question of sendmail vs smail.  The way
you suggested above could work but would lead to having workstation-smail,
workstation-sendmail, dev-smail, dev-sendmail, x-dev-smail, x-dev-sendmail
etc etc.  

Another option would be to ask the question after the install set has been
selected, and vary the selection list accordingly...more flexible but a lot
more complicated to implement.


Craig

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