Re: RFC: a new (meta data) field in .DEB packages

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Hi Gerold,

Gerold Jens Wucherpfennig wrote:

> I can't download thousands of source packages and let them be examined
> by a script just to get the name of the "-dev" packages I want to
> install.

See /var/lib/apt/sources/*_Sources, or try

	source=$(dpkg-query -W -f='${Source}\n' libdevel-symdump-perl)
	: ${source:=libdevel-symdump-perl}
	apt-cache showsrc "$source" | grep Binary

.  No need to download source packages. :)

> I mean it's all about making it easy for the Debian or Ubuntu user to
> set up his/her computer as a development machine.

Yes, that is the upshot.  I am not sure what the best way to do this
is --- installing the development libraries for _all_ installed
run-time libraries does not seem quite right, though I could easily be
wrong.

The usual method is something more like

	# apt-get install build-essential
	# apt-get build-dep something-big-and-related; # e.g., iceweasel
	# apt-get install libfoo-dev libbar-dev libbaz-dev

Anyway, I'd be happy to see a proof of concept that doesn't involve
unnecessarily increasing the size of the already-large Packages file.
Maybe it can start out as an example script under /usr/share/doc/apt
as a stepping stone on the way to world domination.

Thanks for thinking about these things, and good luck.

Regards,
Jonathan