Re: install report for Debian 2.1 and some comments on installation profiles
Brandon Mitchell <bmitch@atdot.org> writes:
> [ woah, this is an old thread, but a good one to bring back. ]
Heh... yeah, I keep around email that I want to reply to, even though
it sometimes takes a month or so before I get a chance.
> Yes, the next frontend to apt (gnome-apt?) should handle the tasks
> specially. They should be able to hit a customize button for each task
> which can take you to a dependency resolution screen. This way if the
> task depends on a web server or apache, it defaults to apache, and the
> customize screen for that task will show all web servers. Then provide
> another customize button to handle all packages (what we have now).
Hum. I tend to think that the existing control description system is
rich enough to already allow this. For example, you can either
virtual packages:
Depends: httpd
or alternatives:
Depends: apache | httpd
> > Another nice benefit to my scheme is that each task/profile can be
> > maintained independantly by different Debian developers. In fact, I
> > volunteer to take over the SGML environment task if we do move to this
> > scheme.
>
> Agreed, distributing the work into small chuncks is better and one reason
> debian has done so well.
Yes -- we'd be pulling the stuff outta the boot-floppies and into the
Debian archive in gneeral. You mention you would like a new section.
That would be nice, but that's a whole ball of wax I'd rather not get
into. I'd rather just put the stuff in the base section, and use a
packaging naming convention for now (task-foo, profile-foo).
> > So -- lets have a little discussion period, and then decide, and
> > perhaps start looking for volunteers. We need to jump on this quick
> > so we can have it in place for freeze time, whenever that is.
>
> It probably isn't difficult to convert the old tasks into packages and put
> them up on an apt-able site.
Well, if we can come up with a nice boilerplate package, then we're
pretty good. A tricky issue is the way that the dependancies can
sometimes vary by platform. Stephane B. used slice to solve this
previously. I guess this system would have to be replace using
debian/substvars and some logic in debian/rules.
Theoretically, you could even take all the profiles and tasks, and
write a one-shot script to make a buncha packages. However, I'm not
sure that would be worthwhile...
Can we get a volunteer to work on this stuff, for proof of concept?
All the volunteer would need is the file which described the
tasks/profiles from the boot-floppies source package.
--
.....Adam Di Carlo....adam@onShore.com.....<URL:http://www.onShore.com/>
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