Re: Non-English software
On Thu, May 31, 2001 at 08:37:12PM +0200, Stefan Alfredsson wrote:
> What I would like is to have some sort of flag or meta information to
> indicate what language/es a package contain, so I can write a script
> to easily weed out packages I know I will never use (and maybe include
> packages in a specific language).
>
> For me this issue is kind of resolved by having net access everywhere,
> but I guess others could benefit from such functionality.
Ok, I've got what you need. Well, I've been promoting some idea of mine
and this is a perfect example, so here we go:
I want to split up the current package trees in multiple directories.
By adding or removing stuff to /etc/apt/sources.list you can control
which parts of the package archive is visible to you.
Example:
We take all the packages that deal with japanese and put them in a
seperate directory tree. If you want to make those packages visible to
apt/dselect/etc... you'll add a line like the following to /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://http.us.debian.org/JP stable main contrib non-free
^^
If you don't want to have those packages around to slow dselect down
remove it. You will also save yourself the bandwith necessary for
downloading package information about those packages.
Another possibility would be to use a different server. Japanese
packages will mostly be used in Japan, so why host them in the USA:
deb http://ftp.debian.JP/ stable main contrib
^^
Changing /etc/apt/sources.list manually is easy, but an automated way
of handling this would be easier. Also there is the problem of knowing
what different sections are available.
One way to handle this would be through task-packages. Currently
task-packages just depend on a number of other packages. However
task-packages could also change /etc/apt/sources.list or install a file
into an /etc/apt/sources.d/ like structure.
So task-jp would install a /etc/apt/sources.d/jp.list . jp.list contains
deb http://ftp.debian.jp/ stable main contrib
and from then on the system will suddenly know about japanese packages.
--
Casper Gielen
casper@huiscomputer.homeip.net, capslock2000@mailandnews.com
--
People just generally like to disagree.
Bill Joy
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