Re: Difference between debian and slackware
Richard Kaszeta writes:
>
> >
> >There is. You only need to get the boot disk, the root disk, and the
> >three base disks. Follow the steps through the installation menu and you
> >end up with a base system. From there, if you use dselect, it will help
> >with the interdependancies and should provide you with as complete a
> >system as you desire.
>
> A problem here is that the first time a user is presented with
> 'dselect' after an installation it can be a wee bit intimidating (it
> intimidates me and I've been using Debian a long time), enough so that
> I still use dpkg in preference to dselect... Anyone out there know
> anything about good interface design? ( I unfortunately don't )
>
> No slights on Ian, dpkg, or dselect here, but I still think dselect
> needs a bit of interface work...
Yes, actually since I've gotten the hang of dselect, I'd like to offer the
following to the developers: (dselect probably does a lot of what I'm about to
describe, unfortunately, the interface is more of a hacker's design)
After you tell 'dselect' the method of installation, it should find all the
modules which reside in the indicated area. Next it would read the 'packages'
file and sort out what packages go to what area and resolve conflicts and
dependency issues.
NOW, it reports to the user - "You have the following
packages ready for installation" and proceeds to list per area (ie. NET,
MAIL, BASE, MISC, etc.) which packages have all dependencies met. Then the
user would have the option of querying 'dselect' "what about xxx.deb" and
'dselect' would report "xxx.deb needs the following packages for correct
installation -". Then 'dselect' would list the missing dependencies.
Back to the installation process; the user would select which packages they
would like installed from the list of 'ready to install' packages (similar to
the current procedure)
"what about conflicts?" - let's suppose that I have selected 'elm' and have
both smail and sendmail packages available. Upon selecting 'elm', 'dselect'
would then prompt me with "You have the option of using 'smail' or 'sendmail'
- which do you wish to use?" I'd then have the ability to select which
package that I want as my mail agent. If I just hit enter, 'dselect' would say
"You have selected the default package 'smail'" "Are you sure? Y/N" Another
enter would proceed with the default.
Another issue of conflicts- suppose I have 'inn' selected and I select
'innnews' - 'dselect' would prompt me with "You already have 'inn' selected
and 'innnews' conflicts with it. Which one do you wish to have installed?"
Then I would be allowed to select one and the other would automatically be
deselected.
After the user has resolved what to install, 'dselect' continues with the
actual installation.
IMHO, the de-installation of packages should be a separate program. Placing
both installation and de-installation functions in the same program only adds
to the confusion!
--
-= Sent by Debian Linux =-
+ Thomas Kocourek KD4CIK +
tomk@westgac3.dragon.com
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