Re: PROPOSAL: automatic installation and configuration
Massimo Dal Zotto <dz@cs.unitn.it> writes:
> > Amos Shapira <amos@gezernet.co.il> writes:
>...
> 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.
>
> The advantage of my tool, or any similar solution, is that the changes
> are very small and limited only to the installation scripts. The only
> changes required are substituting code like this:
>
> print message
> print -n prompt; read answer
>
> with:
>
> answer=$(dpkg-getconfig PKG_VARNAME --message message --prompt prompt)
With my script that looks as follows:
dpkg-question PKG_VARNAME <level> <arch> <--type> <text> <other options>
It pretty much the same, I just have more options to regulate the
amount of questions to be asked and not just turn them on or off.
> The installation script doesn't need to be aware that the value is read from
> a database, it just asks a question and gets an answer. But if the answer
> is asked directly to the user we can't get a chance to store or read it
> in a database, so the scripts must be changed.
>
> If this change in policy would be approved it would take a few days or weeks
> to modify all the installation scripts.
>
> 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.
I already have two such tools, one will ask plain text questions and
the other will use whiptail to popup nice dialogs.
> I would like that the option of an automatic installation be available as
> soon as possible, at least for the beta testing of the installation tools,
> which is almost impossible unless all the packages are modified.
There are very few packages that actually ask questions during
installation, I mean first installation before selecting additional
packages like X. Changing those should not be so time consuming.
> Consider also that making the scripts compatible does't mean that they must
> be installed automatically. If the user chooses the default installation
> method all will proceed as before with the interactive questions.
>
> I would really prefer to have the next freeze delayed of a few weeks rather
> than having to make another totally manual mass installation.
>
> I would like to hear the opinions of other developers on this subject.
>
> For those of you who are interested in the code, the latest versions of my
> experimental packages can be found at:
>
> http://www.cs.unitn.it/~dz/debian/dpkggetconfig_1.1_all.deb
> http://www.cs.unitn.it/~dz/debian/net_1.2_all.deb
Can you upload the source please, since I want to adapt the net
package to my dpkg-question. You know, one allways likes ones own
interfaces best. :)
May the Source be with you.
Goswin
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