Re: APT vs DSELECT ?
On Fri, 13 Aug 1999, Jon Marler wrote:
<snip>
JM> You really need to get apt up and running. Apt would have reported to you
JM> that dselect was about to remove several packages.
Yep. I'm looking at this.
JM>
JM> Also, when you deselected exim, didn't dselect come back and tell you that
JM> several dependancies were broken as a result? It should have showed you a
JM> list of packages that were affected, and why. This has always been the
JM> case when I use dselect.
Yes. The "conflict-resolution" screens are another annoyance. I'd prefer
it if 'dselect' would wait and give me a single one when I hit <RETURN>.
This is another thing that I've seen turn people away from debian.
JM>
JM> The reason that those packages were removed is that they depend on
JM> "mail-transport-agent" which is provided by exim. With exim gone, these
JM> packages can no longer work.
Yes I know. What I should have done is select sendmail first. As I'd
forgotten to do this, I should have reselected all the packages but there
were about 10 of them and I was feeling impatient ...
I think the right thing to do here is to bring up a screen with:
"this package provides mail transport (or X)
which is required for N other packages"
(A) Cancel
(B) Select an alternate of packages which provides X:
(i) Smail
(ii) Sendmail
...
and procede to conflict resolution.
(C) Defer to Conflict resolution (see above).
JM>
JM> When dselect tells you that these packages are broken, and will be removed
JM> you can press 'X' to cancel the package removals. Then you can select to
JM> install sendmail, and these packages will not be removed.
JM>
JM> I agree with you that this type of thing needs to be addressed in a FAQ or
JM> some other such documentation mechanism.
I'm offering to do this ... :)
<snip>
JM> This is a result of the "Access Method" you are using with dselect. If
JM> you used the APT method, you would have seen a list of changes.
Thanks. This is a useful tidbit.
<snip>
----
Guy Hulbert, Project Manager Bioinformatics Supercomputing Centre
(416) 813-8876 555 University Avenue
email: guy@bioinfo.sickkids.on.ca The Hospital for Sick Children
http: www.bioinfo.sickkids.on.ca Toronto, ON, M5G 1X8, CANADA.
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