Bug#53849: PROPOSAL: emacs/tex downgrading to optional
On Sun, Jan 02, 2000 at 01:19:11PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 01, 2000 at 05:21:36PM -0800, Robert Woodcock wrote:
> > * One second
> > There have been no formal objections, I hope that's enough concensus to
> > move forward.
>
> First, I've never seen a `second' or a `formal objection' happen before
> a matter was even brought before -policy.
-policy isn't the only place consensus needs to be reached for this to go
through. It's standard procedure to get a consensus on -devel before asking
the archive maintainers for a priority change.
> Second, you're meant to be seeking consensus, not just avoiding formal
> objections. As far as I'm concerned that means answering questions, not
> just saying there have been some.
>
> So, here are my questions.
Good, for a second I felt accused of not answering questions I haven't been
asked (I replied to your earlier post on -devel before you wrote this
message). :)
I've answered all of your questions.
> First, how do the various tasks packages affect this? Do they include
> all of standard plus some other stuff, or would, eg, a `router' task
> completely obviate the "But I don't want it on my router" complaints?
They don't. Tasks can have any list of packages they want, independent
of priorities. Most include all of standard.
If you have any particular concerns with the contents of a particular task
package, you should probably direct them towards the boot-floppies team.
> And if this is the case, what relevance does standard have at all?
AFAIK it only affects dselect, although I'd expect some of the dselect
replacements (capt, gnome-apt) to make this distinction as well. (Does
anyone know if they do?)
When dselect encounters a new package (the first time it runs everything is
new), if it is of priority 'standard' or higher, it is automatically
selected for installation.
The task packages work by explicitly selecting everything to be installed,
once this is done the packages aren't 'new' to dselect anymore.
> Second, are non-experts expected to be able to remove standard packages?
Depends on the non-expert. :)
I'd expect that a non-expert able to type 'dselect' at a command line [1]
would be able to remove a standard package without trouble.
> I would assume they're able to, but a few people have complained that
> they can't. Is there a dselect misfeature here that will keep reselecting
> them or something?
No.
> Thirdly, what, exactly, is the point of `Standard'?
If you bypass the task package selection screen (answer "n" when it asks
you), it's what you get (unless you bypass dselect as well).
It also affects upgrades. Say a new package was introduced into woody.
This package did not exist in potato. For whatever reason, it is a package
worthy of inclusion into Standard.
A dselect user upgrading from potato to woody would find this new package
automatically selected for them.
For a more concrete example, a slink user who upgraded to potato months ago
(before netstd was fully split) with dselect would find 'telnet' and
'telnetd' automatically included for them.
> Personally, I would
> have thought making it a fairly complete `This is more than enough to get
> you started, and should have most of the things you've probably heard
> that Unix has' would be the most reasonable definition [0]. It seems to me
> that making it `The minimum stuff for a usable system' would just be
> repeating the `required' priority, and `Stuff everyone wants' is likely
> to be impossible to actually make.
> I guess this is basically, why is bloat more important than functionality?
I'm reading that question as "why is a lack of bloat more important than
functionality?". Please correct me if I'm wrong.
It's the degree of bloat vs. the degree of functionality that concerns me.
It's also the installation time. One of the motives for bypassing the task
selection screen is to save time. TeX and Emacs are 28203KB of archive data,
which may be transferred across anything ranging from a U2W SCSI bus (2
seconds) to a POTS modem (2 hours). TeX and Emacs both have time-intensive
postinsts as well (tetex-base has to run initex, emacs has some LISP byte-
compilation to do.)
> All I can see here is a closed-minded `I don't want LaTeX or Emacs, and
> I don't even want to have to think about it to avoid them'. :-/
Because this isn't an issue of right or wrong, only what is preferred for a
majority, there is no such thing as a logical response to this sentence.
> I also have to wonder at the utility of moving things *to* optional, which
> is already getting fairly cumbersome.
Optional has no significance with any tool, so having it encumbered with
lots of packages shouldn't be a concern.
[1] Your guess as to what percentage of users this is is as good as mine. :)
--
Robert Woodcock - rcw@debian.org
"Anybody else wanna negotiate?" -- The Fifth Element
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