Re: Subpackaging (Was: Potato now stable)
On Fri, 18 Aug 2000, Edward Betts wrote:
> I agreed with everything else that you said, you give a good example of how
> subpackaging could be implemented using dpkg. However, one of my concerns as a
> low bandwidth user is transferring stuff. Great, I can split my debs up into
> subpackages inside the deb, but what about downloading. If I do not want to
> download man pages, then I do not want to download man pages, if they are all
> together in a deb, then I have to.
What about having just data-packages outside the .deb-archives. (I love
this idea so much, that I start to bore my self by always repeating it).
The .deb could be just advanced by a Data: and suggestedData:, which could
be ignores by old dpkg without very high problems. (There would be no
data). Then one data-package would only be plattform-inependend data,
which has only name,title,classification. One such data-package could
be stored in a directory with a control file and the packages itself.
There could be a additional program (for example called
debian-data-managment-untily ddmu) which is called by apt with the
packagecontrol file and states which files are needed and not yet
installed. Then dpkg is called and calls ddmu to install the data-pacages.
This way there could be a file describig what to install. (For example,
install PostScript always, Man never, others when viewable, install
english and german, and where no german install dutch)
Then ddmu could install the packages and mention why they are there.
(packagexyz@vwu, where packagexyz can also be "manual"). By specifing an
additional name for the system, data-files within /usr/share could be
managed in an own file in /usr/share/ddmu/installed (while non /share are
in /usr/lib/ddmu/installed or in the home-dirs) and several system could
use the same /usr/share with different rules what to install, so that no
data is doubled but one system can remove a package and exacly that is
removed in /usr/share what was there becaus only this package needed it).
Hochachtungsvoll,
Bernhard R. Link
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