On Sun, 2002-03-03 at 13:44, Eric Dorland wrote:
> I think perhaps the reason that there is little interest is that it
> doesn't seems to be in debian at this time, and a lot of people can't
> be bothered to install something that's not apt-getable (yes its
> laziness :)
This, IMO, is the crux of the problem for which the current state of
Feta is merely a symptom (and the packaging of Feta will be a
nonsolution, if nice). APT has a nicely (at least from an external
viewpoint) designed multiple repository system. There is a nice list of
available APT sources. Why is there not a program to
a) Read a list of APT sources (deb and deb-src).
b) Read the packages/versions/fields in them.
c) Add and remove lines to /etc/sources.list in a friendly manner using
this information.
d) Some nice way to create pin files so as to make this system perfect.
This would, for example, allow Debian users to issue commands like:
> add-source ximian
> pin ximian always # automatically sets it to, say, 5000
> pin debian-stable-main 500 # pin dists/stable/main at 500
> pin sacredchao never # set the pin for sacredchao.net to -1.
I am actually attempting to solve D with a Feta plugin for pin editing,
much like Feta has an override editing plugin in 1.3.0. However, the
interface is still non-par for users that want something that doesn't
involve a whole lot of typing, even if it is menu-based. Maybe something
using Curses.pm would be better? Or just go straight for the GTK
program/script? A feta-plugins-curses might make for some interesting
plugins... as might a feta-plugins-gtk (there is one already in fact,
it's a front end to the toupgrade command).
Unfortunately, a-c are harder (but not impossible!) to solve. APT does
a-b already, in fact. We just need some format with a little bit more
metadata (that can preferrably sit inside an existing APT repo setup and
not touch any exist files, oc), some stuff to parse it, and some stuff
to parse /etc/apt/sources.list. This is something I don't have time for
right now, but it's been on my "to think about" list as "MetAPT" for a
while now. However, it predates Feta, and I would probably do it as a
Feta plugin should I choose to start it now (simply for interface
consistency; Feta plugins can run as stand alone programs, too).
--
- Joe Wreschnig <piman@sacredchao.net> - http://www.sacredchao.net
"What I did was justified because I had a policy of my own... It's
okay to be different, to not conform to society."
-- Chen Kenichi, Iron Chef Chinese
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part