On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 03:32:43PM +0300, Eugene Gorodinsky wrote: > On windows a program may contain some optional components, which you > can choose at install time. This approach (I mean having some main > package and some required and some optional subpackages inside it) is > quite user-friendly. Neither dpkg nor apt have this functionality in > them, and I do not think it's possible to implement it without > changing the package format. We do this by having multiple packages. For example, OpenOffice has different components: not only are there the different programs (writer, math, etc.) but there are different language packs. These are optional components; for example, since I do not speak Danish, I would not want to install the Danish language pack. It would be useless to me. I agree that this functionality is not built into one single package, but I think that Debian's way is superior, since it means that I needn't download data that I don't need, and it is extremely easy to determine what components I have installed. It also makes it easy to reuse those same components in other, unrelated packages. If groff can make use of LaTeX hyphenation patterns, then groff can declare a recommends on those packages without having to necessarily install LaTeX. -- brian m. carlson / brian with sandals: Houston, Texas, US +1 713 440 7475 | http://crustytoothpaste.ath.cx/~bmc | My opinion only OpenPGP: RSA v4 4096b 88AC E9B2 9196 305B A994 7552 F1BA 225C 0223 B187
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature