Re: [RFC/dpkg PATCH] Introducing an relaxed-Essential-like "Important" field
Hi!
On Wed, 2016-03-09 at 07:10:25 +0000, Niels Thykier wrote:
> Julian Andres Klode:
> > Since a few years, APT supports an "Important" field that is similar
> > to Essential, but without the requirement for those packages to be
> > installed (they just need to remain installed) and the ordering
> > constraints. Previously, it was already an alias for Essential in
> > APT.
> >
> > I relaxed the meaning a few years ago to make it suitable for use
> > on site-specific or system-specific configuration meta packages.
> >
> > I propose to make this field official and add support to dpkg
> > for it, as there are new use cases for it, like init systems,
> > e2fsprogs, and mount - packages that are not needed on all
> > systems (like chroots), but once installed should probably
> > remain installed.
> >
> > I attached a patch to add support for dpkg, it's also discussed
> > in a spec in the wiki.
> > [1] https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg/Spec/ImportantField
As mentioned, thanks for writing this up!
> I think the concept is good and and I like how it might be used to
> reduce the essential set.
I'd tend to agree, but I'd probably detangle the definition from
Essential, as the only common thing is that these packages will just
be hard to remove, but should probably not inherit any of the other
Essential:yes facets.
> My personal minor concern is that "Important" might become ambiguous
> since we also have a Priority labelled important[1].
That was precisely my concern too, the name does not look good, and
it's prone to much confusion.
Thanks,
Guillem
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