Re: New section in potato?
I wrote:
>> Please: this is wrong! The sections are *not* there for our convenience
>> but for the USERS to find what they WANT, based on CATEGORIES of software.
Joseph Carter replied:
> Gnome is a category unto itself really. Gnome applications are hardly
> standalone, same with KDE.
I see I should have been more precise: I meant USAGE CATEGORIES.
I can perfectly reasonably want the "admin" tool gtop and the "math" tool
gcalc in my non-GNOME environment, in fact they already correctly show up
in the debian menu system used from fvwm, icewm, blackbox, afterstep,
etc. window manager.
The only reasonable purpose of the sections is to permit the non-expert
user an easy route to set up a machine as a combination of "web server",
"text processing", "personal workstation", "program development", etc.
The orthogonal Debian priority system then assists the user in getting a
consistent such system up quickly.
>> IMHO the "x11" section should be renamed to "desktop" and then most X
>> packages should be reassigned to admin/development/editors/... etc.
>>
>> Rationale: for the vast majority of users X is an absolutely essential
>> component so it does not serve a useful purpose to identify it explicitly.
>
> I disagree. The reason for seperating it is that it is HUGE for one and
> for another you don't need/want X on a router. I do not support making
> Debian a desktop-only distribution. By merging X with existing sections
> we really cause problems with scalability with little change to the way
> the user installs X. I -DO- think a section for window managers would
> not be inappropriate. We all know there are enough of those to go
> around.
Again the purpose of sections is *not* to "make collections of a reasonable
number of packages".
Understand that today a machine used by a *novice* should, in general, have
a complete desktop environment on it. True, an *expert* might want to
install a bare-bones file server or some such but this will be the
exception.
John Cage replied:
> I have to agree with joseph. As a user, I would much prefer to see a
> gnome section, it's just much more convenient when I want to install
> the entire gnome system (and many will, since gnome is an integrated
> user interface). I agree with the above rationale generally, but gnome
> seems to be an exception to the rule; it is simply more intuitive to
> have it available clumped together. KDE also, if the licensing issues
> can be resolved.
>
> If by Metapackage you mean a package which simply contains the entire
> gnome dist (or "pointers" to all of the packages in gnome), that might
> be a cool alternative.
Exactly. IMO metapackages are the right way to provide particular "canned
setups" like
Gnome: all Debian utilities using the GNU Object Model Environment
KDE: a collection of utilities providing a complete desktop environment
because someone will be the MAINTAINER of each such package and thus be
RESPONSIBLE that all the "included" (i.e., depended on) packages actually
work together!
Neither sections nor the by someone proposed keywords have a "responsible"
and that is IMHO enough to disqualify them as having a major importance in
grouping packages "intelligently".
Cheers,
Kristoffer
--
Kristoffer Høgsbro Rose, phd, prof.associé <http://www.ens-lyon.fr/~krisrose>
addr: LIP, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, 46 Allée d'Italie, F-69364 Lyon 7
phone: +33(0)4 7272 8642, fax +33(0)4 7272 8080 <Kristoffer.Rose@ENS-Lyon.FR>
pgp f-p: A4D3 5BD7 3EC5 7CA2 924E D21D 126B B8E0 <krisrose@{debian,tug}.org>
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