Re: "dselect" replacement team

[Jim Van Zandt <jrv@vanzandt.mv.com>]

Sven Rudolph <sr1@os.inf.tu-dresden.de> writes:

>The major problem with dselect is that people are forced to
>understand it during the initial installation; before they have seen
>any advantage of Debian.
>
>The obvious solution is to provide some profiles, e.g. minimal system,
>development system, network server and probably some more.

This "simple selection" would go a long way toward easing
installations.  I'd like to suggest one additional simplification, and
one feature.

For an initial installation, the user should be making *binary*
choices -- whether to include or exclude a package (or group of
packages).  There should be no distinction between "hold" and
"install", or between "remove" and "purge".

The tool should account for disk space.  The primary cost of
installing a package is the disk space it occupies.  At present, the
package size is available (if you know where to look for it).  The
installed size is sometimes available.  There is no running total of
the space required.

                            - Jim Van Zandt