Let me say this (i'm working on a new tsort you can say - but slowly as it's not my day job).if "Virtual package" is the same as "meta package"... (which ends up being a simple lookup before package list ordering / dropping)
Why worry about Recommends or Suggests ? Only after dpkg develops a good install / uninstall list does it become important to consider tagging on extras: which is completely optional as user may say not to even try.
Let me say one thing about libraries and dependancies: DON'T make virtuals more complicated with versions unless you are sure as shit it will fix past and current install difficulties and be compatible with apple / bsd and other pkg systems. it would be a making a far great casm than "virtual" already does to do so.
My initial guess is that virtuals are meant to hide "directness" (ie, specific names and versions) so making virtuals more direct will really cause allot of problems forward and also backward.
Though I'm in a hurry and cane write a paper on it right now :) Bye! Only by discussing and testing thoroughly do you know though. Vincent Danjean wrote:
On 30/08/2011 16:46, Andreas Tille wrote:On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 11:27:48AM +0100, Wolodja Wentland wrote:It is my impression that the problems mentioned in my initial mail can be solved by changing metapackages (like those mentioned by Cyril in his reply) to use Recommends instead of Depends.What happens when a new Recommends is added to a meta-package. Is it installed by default by APT ? Can we add version information (>= X.Y) to Recommends? I'm not sure it is useful for the APT point of view. Regards Vincent