Re: Proposing task-debian
On 05/01/2001 03:09:16 AM Sam Powers wrote:
>> While we're discussing what's wrong with task packages, I'd like to pick
on
>> them a little more:
>> Task packages make things like task-gnome-desktop very easy to install,
but
>> removing the packages which are installed can sometimes be really tough,
if
>> you just wanted to try out gnome, for example.
>> Perhaps task packages should be required to flag their dependencies for
>> removal in their prerm to ease removal of the entire package group.
(probably
>> a better name for this type of package..)
>> Any better ideas?
Been there, done that, noone cares enough. Would take a policy change I
suppose, to enforce it.
>From my poor memory, the "generally agreed best idea" is to setup two
packages, vaguely like this:
Package name: task-abc
Conflicts: task-abc-remove
Depends: abc, bcd, cde, def
Package name: task-abc-remove
Conflicts: task-abc, abc, bcd, cde, def
>From that description you can probably figure out whats going on.
If someone cared enough to do that for all task packages, that would make
removal of tasks "simple". I don't think this will happen soon, because I
get the feeling the the "powerusers" who would have to create the -remove
packages don't use task packages to begin with. Making a sweeping
generalization, most people who have root don't install task packages, if
they want KDE they apt-get install koffice konquerer and let apt figure out
all the dependancies. In other words they already know the names of the
tools they need, so they don't need a task package crutch. Then I could
complain that the newbies that could benefit by the installation of
everything to do task-abc will probably not be able to figure out what's
installed by the task package or what in general is installed on their
system..
Ideally task-abc-remove would even remove itself once it's done. That
would be hard, but it might be possible via a nasty combination of at,
cron, and who knows what else.
Other theories included enforcing the addition of a file in /usr/sbin, for
example:
# filename /usr/sbin/task-abc-remove
# This shell script cleans out task-abc
dpkg --remove abc
# you get the idea
dpkg --remove def
dpkg --remove task-abc
rm /usr/sbin/task-abc-remove
This is also somewhat tricky, as youd have to create
/usr/sbin/task-abc-remove as part of the postinst of task-abc.
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