Re: DEITY TEAM -- REQUEST FOR FUNCTIONALITY and COMMENTS

[Nicolás Lichtmaier <nick@Feedback.com.ar>]

On Mon, 14 Apr 1997, Peter Iannarelli wrote:

> Thanks in advance for you input.

 These are some ideas I have...

 * Meta packages
	Well, I think that everubody knows and wnat this one... The
ability to say: I want a Debian box that does this and this... without
having to select from the actual package list.

 * Selection transferring
	This is a problem we have today that annoyes users but nobody
seems to have noticed. When a package changes his name, or is completely
replaced by another, the user lost his selection when upgrading. Then he
shouts to the mailing lists: "Where is popmail?". We should have a header
to to mark that "A package selected implies B package selected". fetchmail
would have something like `Implied-by: popmail'.

 * More hierarchical
	Users should never be faced to lists of more than 15/20 items. We
need a header like `Section: devel/compilers'. With this kind of hierarchy
we can even have less sections... maybe..

 * Admin modules
	I think that dselect should only be a part of a larger
configuration system. Each package should be able to provide a `plugin
module' that aids the user to configure the package. dselect would be the
`plugin module' provided by dpkg. With this program, admins should be able
to add/remove users as well as packages... I don't say that deity project
needs to write an user adding/removal tool. Just providing a way for
packages to add functionality.

 * Postinst must be able to append to a {tmp file,open fd} that will be
showed after installation.
	This way a package wouldn need to ask for a key in the middle of
installing, just to show a warning message.

-- 
Nicolás Lichtmaier.-
nick@feedback.com.ar