Re: utnubu-desktop for the masses

[Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net>]

Scripsit Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>
> Henning Makholm wrote:

>> Can tasksel tasks be manipulated programmatically with the same
>> apt/aptitude inferfaces that metapackages can?

> This question does not have a yes or no answer, the situation is rather
> more complex than that.

Concretely: In order to clean up when I have played around with new
packages, I have a script that

  1) runs 'aptitude search ~i' and parses the output
  
  2) compares with a hand-maintained list of packages and
     metapackages that should be installed (with their dependencies)
     on my machine.

  3) emits appropriate 'aptitude markauto foo' and 'aptitude install
     bar' commands to remove packages that should not be there and
     install any packages that have been lost (perhaps because I
     temporarily removed them due to conflicts).

If the metapackages in my hand-maintiained list are changed to tasksel
tasks, can I still use my script without adding a parallel block of
code for handling the tasks? (How can that question not have a yes or
no answer?)

If I can't, then I oppose replacing those metapackages with tasks.

-- 
Henning Makholm                     "However, the fact that the utterance by
                           Epimenides of that false sentence could imply the
           existence of some Cretan who is not a liar is rather unsettling."