On Thu, Dec 07, 2000 at 09:09:28AM -0700
> On Wed, 6 Dec 2000, Seth Arnold wrote:
>
> > * Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org> [001206 21:30]:
> > > Task packages are packages whose names are prefixed with `task-'.
> > > Typically they are empty metapackages that merely depend on a collection
> > > of other packages.
> >
> > Joey, nice work; I agree with the general gist of what you are aiming
> > for. When I saw the list, I thought to myself, ``this doesn't buy much
> > over selecting the packages by hand''.
> >
> > However, I think we can agree that many of these packages are *useful*,
> > even if they shouldn't be shown at tasksel time; perhaps renaming the
> > cut packages to be: meta-netscape or meta-c-programming or
> > meta-kde-everything ... would be very handy in allowing those who like
> > gnome to say, ``I want gnome, but I don't want to drag KDE along with
> > it, and I don't know which packages make a good gnome system.''
IMHO it's not tasksel's job to go to the details, as Ben Collins proposed.
We should have a separate tool for that (and we do: dselect, capt,
aptitude). I think we should keep tasksel as it is and reduce the number of
available tasks, like Joey proposed.
Still, I'm not happy with any of dselect et all. Everyone knows what's wrong
with dselect (the number of packages, if someone doesn't). Capt really does
nothing to solve this problem (atleast the version in potato). Aptitude has
the cool tree-like thingie, but it just doesn't "feel right" (again, the
version in potato). What I would like to do is to write yet another tool
like these. Something that has an interface similar to dselect, but with
these improvements:
* A tree-like view (not exactly like aptitude, I don't like cruising
through dozens of treenodes that all have two subnodes)
* Improved handling of tasks (a top level branch called 'Tasks' that
lists all available 'task-'starting packages)
* Removing of all the little discomforts in dselect (stupid handling
of recommends, too terse helps everytime something happens (yes,
I know of --expert))
I was thinking of calling this either aselect, or apt-select (I prefer
aselect. It's shorter ;)
--
Arto Jantunen
PS. If you're thinking of flaming me with something like 'Don't do this! I'm
perfectly happy with dselect/capt/aptitude/apt-get/godonlyknowswhat and
don't need that!', think again. You might not need this, but I do. The
legendary 'scratching an itch'-consept, you know.
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