Re: Some ideas to improve the debian policy
On Thu, Nov 09, 2000 at 03:28:21PM -0600, David Starner wrote:
>
> Big arguments on this one. The generally accepted solution is for the
> user to use a version of apt with the (not as of yet written) ability
> to exclude files, and arbitrarily exclude any unwanted translations.
>
I think I know an easier solution, which involves less work (I hope :).
Create an additional directorie tree on the FTP servers for each language.
In this tree is structured exactly like the main tree, but contains only
language .deb files. One for each package that has been translated.
ftp.debian.org/debian/ \
dists/woody/main/binary-all/base/adduser_3.23.deb
/netbase_4.05.deb
/potato/main/binary-i386/utils/bug_3.2.10.deb
/time_1.7-9.deb
/woody-en_GB/main/binary-all/base/adduser-en-GB_3.23.deb
/netbase-en-GB_4.05.deb
/woody-pt_BR/main/binary-all/base/adduser-pt-BR_3.23.deb
/netbase-pt-BR_4.05.deb
/potato-en_GB/main/binary-i386/utils/bug-en-GB_3.10.deb
/time-en-GB_1.7-9.deb
/potato-pt_BR/main/binary-i386/utils/bug-pt-BR_3.10.deb
/time-pt-BR_3.10.deb
etc...
Note 1: Package names are random and I don't know if they have been
translated.
Note 2: It's not allowed to have an underscore in the filename, but
I'm not very happy with the two dashes either.
Now we change the adduser .deb a little. It will Recommend adduser-i18n_3.23.deb
adduser-en-GB and adduser-pt-BR both Provides: adduser-i18n_3.23.deb
Another option is using tasks. Eg like the kde-base-i18n-nl package.
(I'm not entirely sure about using version numbers. Also I doubt between
using Recommends: and Suggests: . Not all packages are translated to all
languages and dselect will keep complaining about unfullfilled Recommends: .
Suggests: on the other hand are ignored by apt-get install.)
Now the only thing a user has to do to add a language to his system is
to add a line to /etc/apt/sources.list like this:
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ woody-pt_BR main contrib non-free
It would be easy to write a configuration tool to simplify this (even
more) for the users, eg during installation. The same tool can set
the LANG variable to the users preferred primary language.
The advantages:
1. Users won't have any files on their system related to languages they
don't want.
2. No big infrastructrual changes. All of this can be done without
changing dpkg, apt, dselect, etc...
The disadvantages:
1. All translations have to be split off into seperate packages. However
most other solutions require this as well.
2. The Recommends: vs. Suggests. problem.
3. It will look a bit awkward in dselect.
--
Casper Gielen
--
This signature is a tribute to dd and vim, savers of my data.
You are the only ones that can do it, you are the ones that did do it.
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