Re: [custom] Custom Debian Distros need the help from debian developers
Quoting Thomas Viehmann (tv@beamnet.de):
> How does your request correspond with the "debconf is not a registry"
> mantra? Basically you seem to be advocating what many people have called
> debconf abuse.
Hmmmm, I've read over and over about this "debconf abuse" and "debconf
is not a registry" things.
But, even with debian-installer, we use it as a registry..:-) (look at
debian-installer/country, for instance.....this could be used by many
many packages instead of promprting again and again for countries)
Sure, debconf should not been abused, but I think that most of the
time it is abuse by silly and useless notes. Not by settings
questions.
When it comes to asking something for setting up a package, debconf is
an incredibly powerful system.
Moreover, people fighting against debconf abuse seem to forget
something : debconf is currently the one and only way to ask for
settings IN THE USER LANGUAGE.
Debconf is a great tool in Debian i18n and we should try not to lose
this.
This does not mean that packages should prompt for each and every
setting with debconf. This just means that when it is possible to make
some settings easily with debconf, I don't think it's Evil to use it.
The problem with debconf is mostly a misuse of priorities. "High"
questions should be an exception, "critical" question should be very
rare.
The standard should be "low" priority, maybe "medium" when the
corresponding setting has some importance for the package.
But, please, folks, remember the importance debconf has for our
distribution i18n.....even though I'm a bit biased when it comes to
i18n...:-)
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