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Re: Theme packages ?

On Fri, Nov 29, 2002 at 10:22:55AM -0600, Graham Wilson wrote:
> > I think I understand the problem with testing,
> 
> what problems would there be with testing?

	I've attached (with permission) the discussion James and I had
	regarding testing. The problem essentially is that the meta package
	ties all of the theme packages together. See the attachment for
	details.

> > but maybe it could be hosted somewhere outside of the official
> > archive?
> 
> even though a metapackage would be a good idea, i think it might be too
> much hassle to host outside of the debian archive, especially since it
> is such a small package.

	Currently the package is still available from people.debian.org/~crafterm.
	It's not apt-gettable at the moment, but I could change that.
	
	Cheers,
	
	Marcus

-- 
        .....
     ,,$$$$$$$$$,      Marcus Crafter
    ;$'      '$$$$:    Computer Systems Engineer
    $:         $$$$:   ManageSoft GmbH
     $       o_)$$$:   82-84 Mainzer Landstrasse
     ;$,    _/\ &&:'   60327 Frankfurt Germany
       '     /( &&&
           \_&&&&'
          &&&&.
    &&&&&&&:
--- Begin Message --- 
Hi,
 
 Sorry, but I don't understand the point of this package.  I can
 understand meta packages when they choose a useful subset of packages
 for you or collect disparate packages but what's the point of
 something that AFAICS is a glorified "apt-get install gtk*engine*"?
 
 Also the very existence of this package is going to make life harder
 for gtk*engine* packages simply because they'll all be tied together
 by this package and won't be able to progress testing except en-masse
 which is surely not helpful.
 
 So what am I missing?  What makes this package more useful than the
 apt-get invocation above and what justifies the pain it'll cause it's
 dependees WRT getting into testing?
 
 -- 
 James



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--- Begin Message --- 
Marcus Crafter <crafterm@fztig938.bank.dresdner.net> writes:

> 	The idea behind the package is to be able to install all gtk2
> 	themes in one hit, without having to search through the available
> 	packages and installing each one separately.

Sorry, but that's bogus.  There's no need to search, as I've said:

  apt-get install gtk*engine*

> 	I'm not sure I understand - do you mean, if one particular
> 	theme package can't make it into testing for whatever reason,
> 	then all of them can't ?

It means the themes are all tied to the meta package.  If Britney
tries to remove a single theme, the meta has to go too.  Essentialy
the themes are no longer seperate entities but are tied together by
the meta package as far as testing's concerned.

> 	If this is the case, I would see this to be a generic problem that
> 	other meta packages (eg. the meta package gnome) would have too.

Yes, meta packages are broken by design.  That's why tasks don't use
them anymore.

> 	I think you understand the point of the package - essentially it's
> 	to make it easier for those users who want to have all available
> 	themes installed on their system (updated automatically), but don't
> 	want to have to go searching all the time.
>
> 	I'm not sure I undertstand the 'testing' problem - from what I can
> 	see all meta packages suffer the same problem. I must have not
> 	understood something.

The difference is most other meta packages come from the same source
as the packages they depend on so the tieing-together effect is less
of an issue.  The big example of where this is obviously not the case
(tasks) are a good example of why meta packages are problematic and
why they were dropped for that purpose.

As I see it you're taking all the gtk themes which are separate
entities, and tieing them together for the rather dubious benefit of
automating 'apt-get install gtk*engine*'.

*sigh* re-upload it if you want, maybe another ftpmaster is less
opinonated about it than me.

-- 
James

--- End Message ---
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