Re: [custom] Custom Debian Distros need the help from debian developers

[guillaume pernot <gpernot@praksys.org>]

yep,

Le dimanche 29 Février 2004 10:04, Benj. Mako Hill a écrit :
> On Sun, Feb 15, 2004 at 10:04:01AM +0100, Petter Reinholdtsen wrote:
> > In Debian Edu, we believe debconf pre-seeding is the only sensible way
> > to do this in a way that all CDDs can benefit, and the only way that
> > is expected to avoid most upgrade problems.  The alternative is to
> > replace or edit other packages files, and this is error prone and hard
> > to do within the current policy.
>
> Debian-Nonprofit is currently benefiting from the legwork that
> Debian-Edu has done in adding the ability to customize packages in a
> number of important ways through the addition of low-priority Debconf
> questions. Outside of package specific examples, the ability to work
> toward custom configurations from fully within the Debian framework is
> IMHO *the* single largest problem faced by CDDs and the addition of
> low-priority questions is (again, IMHO) by far the best and most
> elegant solution to this problem.

i agree with the fact that custom configurations is the largest problem faced 
by CDDs, and that debconf pre-seeding is a clever answer.

but, changing question priority is as hard as changing package files, as 
priorities are defined in debian/{config,{post,pre}inst} in package source, 
isn't it ?

whether the user should be asked for questions or not is a frontend matter : 
the "Noninteractive" frontend does the trick whithout bothering patching 
upstream packages.

moreover, the frontend approach keeps question priorities : we don't have to 
ask for every package maintainer to get rid of the, somewhat usefull, 
priority hierarchy.

regards,
guillaume pernot