Re: Unmet Deps revisted
On Wed, 13 Jan 1999, Joseph Carter wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 13, 1999 at 09:31:07PM +0100, Santiago Vila wrote:
> Joseph Carter wrote:
> > > Conflicts and dependancies are what
> > > make Debian better than dists like slackware. You cannot seriously
> > > expect to be able to make every single optional package install because
> > > there are just too many programs that exist and do the same exact thing.
> > > What you're asking us to do is to decide for the users which programs are
> > > the best when there is a case where two programs serve the same purpose
> > > but cannot serve that purpose at the same time.
> >
> > We *already* do this for MTAs, I don't see the difference between MTAs and
> > any other set of programs which "serve the same purpose but cannot serve
> > that purpose at the same time", as you have described.
>
> I don't think Debian should be choosing which software I should use.
Debian does *not* choose the software you should use.
You choose the software you should use when you enter dselect and select
the packages you want to be installed.
On the other side, if you really think Debian chooses the software you
should use just because I propose to make extra a certain set of currently
optional packages, then you should be obviously against dselect selecting
automatically packages having required, important or standard priority.
Taking things to an extreme, should not be everything optional then?
Fine. Let's have just two types of packages: Essential ones and optional
ones.
> > Just read the definition of "optional" in the packaging manual:
> >
> > "This is all the software that you might reasonably want to install if you
> > didn't know what it was or don't have specialised requirements."
>
> Compare to the definition of "extra":
>
> This contains packages that conflict with others with higher
> priorities, or are only likely to be useful if you already know
> what they are or have specialised requirements.
>
> A package only conflicts with higher priority optional if it's placed
> into extra... => Note however I believe the intent is things which
> conflict with standard and above packages here as that seems to me to be
> a reasonably good use of extra.
I think the intent is exactly that a package not being extra
should never conflict with another package not being extra. This way
if two optional packages do conflict, we downgrade one of the two to extra
and then the extra one conflict with the optional one, which has a
higher priority, this is what the definition suggests.
> Also the hint here is that extra packages are only to be installed if you
> know what you're doing.
This is *exactly* my point. The message is clear: As long as you don't
install any extra package, you should not have any problem.
Since extra is for people who knows what they are doing, optional should
be a safe priority for people who does *not* know what they are doing.
That's why you should be able to install all the optional packages without
worrying about conflicts.
--
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