Re: Bug#285768: dselect survey

[Wouter Verhelst <wouter@grep.be>]

On Wed, Dec 15, 2004 at 04:02:03PM -0500, Daniel Burrows wrote:
> On Wednesday 15 December 2004 03:37 pm, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> > > ? It seems like "Unknown" would just be a synonym for "No", right?
> >
> > Uh, yes. I think.
> >
> > You may want to explain that a bit more.
> 
>   Well, from the bug report, it looks like the proposal is to maintain the 
> current behavior, but to set a different flag on packages that were 
> conservatively assumed to be manually installed, so they can be switched 
> later to automatic handling if desired.  Sounds useful.

Well, in that case, not entirely.

You may also want to set a flag on packages that are assumed to be
automatically installed, but of which you have no information.

Consider libgnome2-perl: people may want to install that, even if there
is no dependency, to allow for debconf to provide a gnome frontend;
however, I can imagine there are also packages that have a dependency on
libgnome2-perl.

Now consider a user who recently switched to aptitude after having used
a different frontend for a long while; this user had installed
libgnome2-perl manually (for the debconf frontend), but later on
installed just one package depending on libgnome2-perl to see what it
does. At that time, the switch to aptitude was made; but then the user
decided that the package using libgnome2-perl isn't useful enough, and
removes it again.

What debfoster will do in that case, is present the user with
libgnome2-perl (and all packages whom only libgnome2-perl depends on and
for which no preference is yet known), and ask whether they should be
removed.

I really think this is the right thing to do in such a situation.

-- 
         EARTH
     smog  |   bricks
 AIR  --  mud  -- FIRE
soda water |   tequila
         WATER
 -- with thanks to fortune