An X version of dselect for slink

[Tom Lees <tom@lpsg.demon.co.uk>]

Since it seems obvious that apt WON'T be finished (GUI bit I mean) before
freeze of slink, I have started writing an X clone of the Dselect tool.

Although to be ready by 16th will make it pretty much a hack, I think it
is one worthy for this release (in much the same way as the preselections
were earlier).

I will write it using GTK (I already have the basic framework done),
development version 1.1 (for GtkCTrees, they are VERY useful for this).

I have a couple of questions:-

a) Does anyone else think this is a good idea?
b) How will this integrate with the installation

Point b probably needs more expansion. What I mean is, if J Random Luser
installs the basic system using the boot disks, it would be nice to start
X, then this tool ASAP (basically, instead of Dselect). What needs to be
done in terms of bootdisks and installation stuff to support this?
(Presumably at least a question in the install "do you want to use a GUI
install program or a TUI install program?").

Dselect's functionality is fairly simple - I believe I can have it
duplicated and fully tested (enough for my scrutiny) under X by freeze
time, after which others can test it.

Some more random dselect/dpkg questions for slink:

Also, we need to deal with the dselect Install/Remove/Configure syndrome.
We could easily put in my tool "Apply changes", which does all three
(using same script interface). IMHO, we ought to switch completely
to dpkg-mountable and apt (i.e. drop all existing default methods
bar possibly dpkg-ftp and disks).

What about multi-cd stuff? Should be integrated into mountable IMHO.

Can mountable handle an FS which isnt in /etc/fstab? If not,
the bootdisks ought to as a bare minimum insert the installation
medium (if CDROM) into /etc/fstab with options
"noauto,noexec,nosuid,nodev,ro", and /floppy should be there too.

More docs for this bit would also be good.

-- 
Tom Lees <tom@lpsg.demon.co.uk> <tom@debian.org>  http://www.lpsg.demon.co.uk/
PGP Key: finger tom@master.debian.org, http://www.lpsg.demon.co.uk/pgpkeys.asc.