From: Massimo Dal Zotto <dz@cs.unitn.it>
> Whichever automatic installation system we decide to introduce in Debian,
> a reorganization (more or less substantial) will be absolutely mandatory.
>
> The current configuration method is totally incompatible with an automatic
> installation system, and the best installation tool we could design would be
> totally useless unless *ALL* packages have been made compatible with it.
I think I understand what you mean by that and agree with it.
I did some more thinking about the proposed system and noticed that
even, for instance, it is used with an X11 interface to pop-up a
window for each question individually, it can get quite annoying to
the user.
Another option to do this without needing a major reorg might be to
instruct script writers to concentrate ALL the questions as early as
possible in the script, hopefully in one large chunk. That way it
might be easier to replace the entire chunk of questions with some
database-access command (or consolidate the questions in a single GUI
window).
> If we design a general enough dpkg-getconfig/dpkg-message API we could later
> replace the initial tool with a much more sophisticated one, possibly using
> a totally different user interface or method for handling the configurations.
Right.
Cheers,
--Amos
--Amos Shapira | "Of course Australia was marked for
| glory, for its people had been chosen
amos@gezernet.co.il | by the finest judges in England."
| -- Anonymous
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