Re: config packages [Was: rm -r * and the default prompt]
On Tue, 20 May 1997, Enrique Zanardi wrote:
> On Tue, 20 May 1997, Nicol=E1s Lichtmaier wrote:
>
> > I think that this is the kind of thinking that is killing Debian.
> >=20
> > 1) Newbie setting doesn't mean annoying settings.
> > 2) `real men' like you can change those settings.
> > 3) Configuration packages is an awful idea that goes against the idea of
> > package. A better solution would be a system setting that packages would
> > check an install the apropiate default.
> > 4) We aren't building a distribution only for us.
> >=20
> > Let's stop being so narrow minded... We need a little of marketing... We
> > need to be known as an easy distribution for newbies...
>
> The problem with that approach is that many of those "newbie" settings
> are just a matter of taste. We don't want to set a thousand of those
> parameters in hundreths of different config files that will have to be=20
> edited to reset them.
Not if we can use a config database to do most of the mindless changing of
defaults.
> It would be easier if all those parameters could be grouped in a
> single config package. We may have a handful of those to choose
> (hint: "themes"). It may even be useful for localization!
^^^^^^
NOOOOOO!!!!!!!! We should _NOT_ use this name. I hate it (and its probably
trademarked as well). But I don't have a better suggestion :(
However, good point. I don't like the idea of a package doing this,
though. I think the best idea will possibly be to get a proper global
configuration interface sorted out (dcfgtool, anyone?), and then you could
do something like:-
/theme1/bash/ps1 "\\h:\\w\\$ "
/config/bash/ps1 not set
/default/bash/ps1 "\\$ "
Then, set "theme" to "theme1", and you will have your prompt as
"\\h:\\w\\$ ". Set it to "none", and you get the default. Set the variable
"/config/bash/ps1", and it won't be affected by changing the "theme".
Nice idea, maybe we should add a scheme like this (implementation etc.) to
the objectives for hamm.
> I don't see the reason why you don't like the idea of Config packages.
> Can you elaborate a little more on that, please?
It just seems wrong to me (like having a "dummy" package which contains no
files, but has dependencies). It's not clean.
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