Re: desktopnova (rename packages or change dependencies?)
Am Dienstag, den 08.06.2010, 20:17 +0200 schrieb Stefan Haller:
> On Monday 07 June 2010 17:28:19 Daniel Leidert wrote:
> > I would expect a simple third solution:
> >
> > desktopnova depends on the modules with equal version
> > the modules don't depend on desktopnova at all
> >
> > Why do they depend on desktopnova atm? They don't contain anything that can
> > be run by a user and requires desktopnova. Do they? Just imagine a
> > library. It won't do anything useful without any application using it. But
> > we don't let the library depend on applications using it. Let the modules
> > packages suggest desktopnova if you want. But having them installed does
> > not raise any technical reason, why desktopnova must be present at the
> > system.
> >
> > The version requirement can be easily fulfilled via the desktopnova control
> > fileds.
>
> Thank you for your reply.
>
> This solution is also possible. The problem is that the users can't choose the
> desktop environment. Let's say a user has a Xfce system and he installs
> desktopnova. APT now has the choice to install either desktopnova-module-gnome
> or desktopnova-module-xfce. But the user has no impact on the process -- APT
> might choose desktopnova-module-gnome which is the wrong one from the user's
> point of view.
Two hints:
a) The usual way is, that such a desktop-dependent package will depend
and pull in the required environment (compare it to e.g. a frontend of a
program for GTK vs QT - we have several examples in the repository). So
the user will see, what's going on.
b) Let both modules packages provide desktopnova-module and conflict
with each other. Then let desktopnova depend on desktopnova-module. So
the user will have to choose the module package to install. IMO this is
a common solution.
c) Create "dummy" packages (like e.g. gnome-media, gnome-core, ...) and
let them depend on the right module package: e.g. create
desktopnova-xfce and let it depend on desktopnova and
desktopnova-module-xfce.
> The users have to install the modules first and then the main package.
I can't see a technical reason for this statement.
[..]
> I hope I missed nothing, but I don't see a way to express the dependencies in
> the control file easily.
Well, your situation isn't uncommon. We have several examples in the
repository and I described several common solutions above. IMO you can
check against the list of e.g. `dpkg -l "*-gnome"'.
Regards, Daniel
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