Re: Package Dependencies
Adrian Lopez <adrian2@caribe.net> writes:
> The purpose of this message is to inspire discussion with respect to
> Debian's package dependency issues. I apologise if this is not the
> proper venue for this, but I felt that the dpkg and deity development
> lists would be even less appropriate. I also apologise if this has been
> discussed before. I'm not extremely familiar with Debian's lists.
>
> Often I like building my own packages from tar.gz sources, both for
> regular programs and for development libraries. I also like using
> dselect for managing those packages which I don't compile myself. This
> way of doing things is sometimes difficult because of certain package
> dependencies, both hard and suggested. This is a problem, as I don't
> like having to manually override package installation every time I
> install something new. I really don't want to cease using dselect, but
> it can be trouble sometimes.
Why use just tar.gz files? Use the .dsc files (if you don`t already
do) and use "debuild" (or build on slink). I think thats in
"devscripts". "debuild" will build you a .deb package from the debian
source and (unless disabled by options) also make a diff to the
original source and sign the packages.
After debuild has run, you can just install the packages via dpkg or
copy them to some common place and have apt or dselect get them from
there. That way your dependencies will be set correctly.
> I would like to freely customise my system without causing package
> dependency problems. The best solution I can think of is to be able to
> "dummy install" any package that is not considered to be "critical". I
> could dummy install certain libraries, for instance, providing instead
> my own versions of these libraries. It's about making customization
> easier.
Thats exactly the wrong way. You should supply correct informations to
dpkg. What if the new gif lib is incompatible to the one you dummy
installed last month. Maybe because of the old dummy lib, the new gimp
wont install, but the old will remain, which doesn`t work with your
selfmade lib.
But even so "dummy install" is a good thing, just for different
reasons.
> Doing a dummy install should be a trivial matter. It might be as simple
> as doing a regular install, selecting the package for dummy install with
> a special key combination (similar to + - _ = : options). All this would
> do is to satisfy other packages' dependencies requiring the presence of
> the package being installed; nothing is really installed.
>
> I feel this would be a great asset to users who like to compile their
> own packages from sources other than Debian's, while also preserving
> some of the benefits inherent in Debian's package system.
>
> What do you people think?
That that will be obsolete with some suggestions made on
debian-admintool, especially (just someone implementing those quickly
is missing):
- all configuration options must have a working default
- package might not ask for user interactions, except via ONE
interface (which will allways take the default [or the database
entry] as answere, when the "dummy" or "don`t configure" option is
active).
The above have been suggested in various forms and together with many
other things, but basically that fits most suggestions.
May the Source be with you.
Goswin
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