New dependencies mechanism suggested! (Re: Back to RedHat)
David Engel wrote:
> The first idea is to have, for lack of a better name, super packages.
> Super packages don't contain any files. Instead, they only contain
> dependencies on other packages.
This is already possible and has been done.
> The second idea is for dselect (or apt or whatever) to either
> automatically or at least offer to remove packages which haven't been
> explicitly selected by the user when no other installed packages
> depend on them.
Man, what a *great* idea.
Debian packages would need two levels of selection:
- user-specified : User has selected this package. It is kept at
upgrades.
A lot of such packages could be Super packages
mentionned above (C development, LaTeX typesetting,
etc)
- package-specified : Selected from a dependency from a user-specified
package (or, recursively, from a package-specified
dependency that started from a user-specified
package).
Debian package manager would be allowed and encouraged
to remove these packages if no user-specified package
requires it.
I can imagine a drag-and-drop package selection tool. All packages on one
side. Use picks up a package and drops it on the other side. It appears
in a normal font because it's user-specified. At the same time, a bunch of
other packages are moved to the `install' side, but they are shaded. They
are the package-specified dependencies...
--
Peter Galbraith, research scientist <GalbraithP@dfo-mpo.gc.ca>
Maurice Lamontagne Institute, Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada
P.O. Box 1000, Mont-Joli Qc, G5H 3Z4 Canada. 418-775-0852 FAX: 775-0546
6623'rd Linux user at the Linux Counter -- http://counter.li.org/
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