Re: package pre-selections tool

[Enrique Zanardi <ezanardi@ull.es>]

On Sun, Apr 05, 1998 at 02:58:52PM -0400, James R. Van Zandt wrote:
> 
> 
> Adam P. Harris writes:
> >Yann Dirson writes:
> > > Adam P. Harris writes:
> > >  > Here's my suggestions for the prerolled configurations:
> > >  > 
> > >  > * basic (stripped down, minimal) configuration:
> > >  > * minimal X11 (laptop) configuration:
> > >  > * full user X11 standalone
> > >  > * full developer box
> > > 
> > > * Intranet server:
> > > MTA, WWW server, maybe others ?
> 
> For reference, here are the options under RH 4.0:
> 
> ( )  C development
> ( )  development libraries
> ( )  C++ development
> ( )  print server
> ( )  news server
> ( )  nfs server
> ( )  networked workstation
> ( )  anonymous FTP/gopher server
> ( )  web server
> ( )  select individual packages
> 
> These are not mutually exclusive - the user can select any
> combination.  This would be a bit difficult to set up, and IMHO not
> necessary.  

It's not difficult to implement a tool that let the user choose from a
non-mutually-exclusive list of package-groups. In fact, Bruce pkgsel
tool does exactly that. The difficult part is providing the package
groups (mutually-exclusive or incremental, like in your proposal, it
doesn't matter. But somenone has to make those groups _soon_).

> This would be easy to implement - just keep a "dpkg --get-selections"
> file corresponding to each, and copy it in using "dpkg
> --set-selections".  Several other profiles are possible, of course.

It's the same thing with non-mutually-exclusive groups. Please, have a
look at Bruce's code
(ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/project/experimental/pkgsel.tar.gz) to see
how has it been implemented.
 
> The key points are:
> 
>   1. Advise the new user *not* to add/delete individual packages,
>      because dselect's dependency/conflict resolution screen is
>      user-unfriendly, and it takes at least an hour just to go through
>      the 1400 packages.
>   2. Indicate the total disk usage for each profile.  dselect ought to
>      manage disk space, but does not.  We should give the user this
>      basic information, so he knows whether he has lots of space left,
>      or will have to revise his partitioning to get everything to fit.
> 
> I will work on a script to calculate disk usage based on a "dpkg
> --get-selections" file.

	Thanks,
--
Enrique Zanardi						   ezanardi@ull.es
Dpto. Fisica Fundamental y Experimental			Univ. de La Laguna


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