Re: i

[Marcus Brinkmann <Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de>]

On Wed, Feb 11, 1998 at 02:19:22PM +0100, joost witteveen wrote:
> In an attempt to save the world from disaster, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
> 
> [about cris-cust]:
> 
> > Another can of worms is that configuration packages should be forbidden
> > in the distribution, because this could yield in 300 packages nobody is
> > interested in.
> 
> Actually, I'd be in favour of configuration pacakges. OK, I'd
> rather have configuration packages like "minimal-install", 
> "netstuff-install", "tex-deluxe-install", than having config packages like
> "joostw-cust", "joostk-cust", "marcus-cust", "bruce-cust", etc, as
> new users are not very likely to know the differences between the 
> latter (actually, I don't know myself what will be in "joostw-cust").

Sure, the "preselected" packages are a totally different story, because they
provide a well defined useful functionality. I am only against miscellanous
and random changes to my system through a package (it could easily happen
that you install a package without wanting it, or where you think it
provides another functionality - it happened to me with the user-de package).

Instead of putting random functionality and configuration in a small only for a
specific user useful package, it would be better to invest the time to
improve general solutions, as the consistent keyboard conf project or deity
or COAS.

It is nice that such things can be done with dpkg, but such abnormal
features should only be provided by local packages and kept out of the main
distribution.

Here is the description of christ-cust:

Description: Christoph's Preferred Customizations
 This package configures a debian system according to my liking.
  - Install the "l" script which lists the contents of directories
  - Install the "i" scirpt which establishes an IRC connection with
    a debian support channel.
  - Install the "checkmirr" script to figure out the nearest debian
    mirrors

I am not sure if those scripts justify a package. "l" seems to be easier
and more efficient solved with an alias, and the "i" command, too. I never
looked at the scripts, though-

The checkmirr script should perhaps be included in another debian package,
or the functionality should be implemented in dselect/deity.

  - Make sure that all the /usr/local/xxx directories are present

I'm not sure about this. How far will this go, there are many directories
possible that perhaps never will be needed. Most important local directories
should be provided by the debian packages separately, so this should not be
needed. I don't like unnecessary changes in local area.

  - /etc/profile customization so that a decent prompt and a pager is set
up.

/etc/profile is a conffile of the bash package!

  - /root/.bash_profile customization for superuser mode

This is a bash-files conf file!

  - When selected from dselect draw in those difficult to find packages
 joe,ncftp,pico,pine,epic,bug,exim

This is a very special case of functionality that should be generally
solved. See above. Deity will have this, though.

  - Modify the setup to not generate delete when pressing backspace. Makes
 console mode compatible with X setup. Might cause problems for emacs
 users.

This should be genrally solved, too. There is already an active group
working on this, but they have some problems with the m4 macros.

  - install deluser script to ease deletion of users

This should probably included in the package that has adduser, if it is
useful.


I see no good reason for such a package. Until somebody has strong reasons
for the usefulness of such packages, I will object against those sort of
packages in the main distribution.

> This is all untill we have the new deity, of cource.

Sure.

> The upstream maintainer is allowed to do things different 
> than Debian, but only if he has good reasons to do so.

I second this heartly.

Bye,
Marcus

-- 
"Rhubarb is no Egyptian god."        Debian GNU/Linux        finger brinkmd@ 
Marcus Brinkmann                   http://www.debian.org    master.debian.org
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de                        for public  PGP Key
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