Re: cleaning up our task packages
On Thu, 7 Dec 2000, John Galt wrote:
> On Thu, 7 Dec 2000, Joey Hess wrote:
>
> > Aaron Lehmann wrote:
> > > Another thing that I think is important is that a task should actually
> > > have the effect of installing a multitude of packages. If it doesn't,
> > > you gain nothing over selecting packages by hand.
> >
> > No, you gain the ability to say "I want to do foo", and get everything you
> > could ever want to do foo. If that only involves one or two packages, no
> > problem.
>
> DANGER WILL ROBINSON! If a task-* package only installs one package, it
> sounds like the package description isn't being clear enough in the
> package to be installed.
Fwiw although task-imap only installs one package, the package it installs
pulls in another couple of packages. Does that count?
I invite any improvements to the description of uw-imapd but I think it's
pretty good as is.
> I would submit that the only useful task-*
> package is one that installs 2+ packages--a task-* package that installs
> only one package is a pretty good indicator of brokenness either in the
> installed package or the suitability of the task (the one other thing it
> may indicate is a transitive lack of packages to install--basically the
> task got built before the packages implict got built, which is a
> brokenness in and of itself, but one that will fix itself).
>
I think you're missing the point. Let's assume Joe Newbie wants to
install an IMAP server. Tasksel gives him the ability to do just that
without wading thorugh the 5000-long list of packages. It saves him
having to think about which of the three or more IMAP servers in the
distributions is the right one. Uncle Debian in his wisdom makes the
choice for him and takes care of the details.
As Joey has already said, most of us will find that kind of automatic
choice too.restrictive. Fine, task packages aren't meant for us.
--
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar@debian.org>
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