Sorry again for the long delay but we now have a CVS up containing the earliest versions of our basic Debian-Lex packages. These are not ready to be uploaded into unstable. The CVS is (usually, although it seems down now) at http://alioth.debian.org/projects/debian-lex. People who want write access to it need to let me know. As a rule of thumb, if you don't know what CVS is, you don't want write access to it. As soon as the packages are uploaded into stable, a bug report against tasksel will be filed containing the attached patch, which will create two tasks, "lex-workstation" and "lex-server". You will choose one of those when you install Debian, and it will give you a basic generic workstation or server Debian box, and then take you into a tags browser where you can choose Debian-Lex-specific packages to add to it. Herein lies a problem. The launching of the tags browser is supposed to happen during the configuration of the lex-common package. But, if we are still in the middle of configuring packages, the apt package database will be locked, which means that the tags browser won't be allowed to install the files that you select. Any ideas that anyone may have about how to work around this would be appreciated. The current versions of the packages in CVS are based around the philosophy that each individual Debian-Lex package will contain its own patch file for the tags database, which will add tags *for that package*, ie. a package "lex-foo" might add "lex-foo: +legal,+editors" to the tags database to indicate that it is a Debian-Lex package and that it is an editor. I have now realised that this is wrong, because it will mean you can't filter for tags using a tags browser until you have installed the package that you are trying to filter for. What is necessary instead is that the tags for all Debian-Lex packages be added to the lex-common package. That way, you only need to have installed lex-common (which is a dependency of the lex-workstation and lex-server tasks) in order to browse the tags of all packages in Debian-Lex. As for the actual packages themselves, they won't need to have anything special in them differentiating them from ordinary Debian packages, except for a menu file to be added to the Debian-Lex user menu if it exists, and a line in debian/rules that says "lex_install_helper" (this installs the menu file for you, and possibly does other stuff that you don't need to know about - see the files in CVS for details), and possibly the package's name should start with "lex-" (views on that?). I know that there are some people on this list for whom most of the above is gobbledygook so feel free to ask questions if you don't know what I'm raving on about and would like to know. For those who do know what I'm talking about, the bottom line is that there is now nothing stopping you from packaging stuff for Debian Lex, so please do so! Most of the proposed packages are listed on our developers' Web site at http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-lex/software.html. -- JEREMY MALCOLM <Jeremy@Malcolm.id.au> Personal: http://www.malcolm.id.au Providing online networks of Australian lawyers (http://www.ilaw.com.au) and Linux experts (http://www.linuxconsultants.com.au) for instant help! Disclaimer: http://www.terminus.net.au/disclaimer.html. GPG key: finger.
--- debian-tasks.desc Sun Aug 10 22:51:46 2003 +++ debian-tasks.desc.old Sun Aug 10 22:42:38 2003 @@ -337,26 +337,3 @@ kernel-package kernel-source-2.4.21 -Task: lex-workstation -Section: user -Description: Debian Lex workstation - This task installs the part of the Debian Lex distribution that is - suitable for an office workstation, including a suite of office - productivity software suitable for use in a legal office, and which - interoperates with the server software installed by the lex-server task. -Key: - lex-common - x-window-system-core - openoffice.org - -Task: lex-server -Section: server -Description: Debian Lex workstation - This task installs the part of the Debian Lex distribution that is - suitable for an office server, including the PostgreSQL database and - a pre-defined database schema which interoperates with the software - installed by the lex-workstation task. -Key: - lex-common - lex-schema - postgresql
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