* Joe Wreschnig (piman@sacredchao.net) wrote: > 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. That is a good idea, but it really doesn't solve the problem of laziness. You're complaining that there's no interest, but you're not making it easy for lazy developers to get it (ie just apt-get it, not have to edit there sources.list). Also, personally, i don't like sources outside of debian to my sources.list, since they don't have the infrastructure behind them (bugs.debian.org, etc.) and they can frequently create a mess if they are different packagings of packages that are already in debian (the ximian stuff springs to mind). I'm sure other developers feel similarly. > > 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). -- Eric Dorland <dorland@lords.com> ICQ: #61138586, Jabber: hooty@jabber.com 1024D/16D970C6 097C 4861 9934 27A0 8E1C 2B0A 61E9 8ECF 16D9 70C6 -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GCS d- s++: a-- C+++ UL+++ P++ L++ E++ W++ N+ o K- w+ O? M++ V-- PS+ PE Y+ PGP++ t++ 5++ X+ R tv++ b+++ DI+ D+ G e h! r- y+ ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
Attachment:
pgpKQPMce5huF.pgp
Description: PGP signature